


He Has Enough

by 27dragons, tisfan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU-appropriate gore and violence, Alternate Universe - Paranormal, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Werecreatures, Anal Sex, Blood Drinking, M/M, Oral Sex, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-10-17 08:21:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17556758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/27dragons/pseuds/27dragons, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: Someone or somethingis kidnapping Tony’s blood dolls and killing them in messy and extravagant ways, and the word from the underground is that there’s a wyr involved. This cannot stand. New York has been Tony’s territory for over a century, and he’s going to track down the intruders and show them exactly why.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beir/gifts), [MarvelousMenagerie (HiddenOne)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiddenOne/gifts).



> This story was inspired by [this amazing art](https://beir.tumblr.com/post/150577021263/) from beir, who was kind enough to give us permission to play with it.

> _“Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave, let him know he has enough.”_ -Walt Whitman

Tony searched the dark recesses of the club, and then searched again. He recognized a few regulars, but none of his favorites. And those who were present seemed... nervy. Checking the exits, huddling a little closer to their friends than usual.

Tony ran a tongue over his fangs and changed course, going to lean on the polished bar and waiting until he’d caught Clint’s eye. “Where is everyone? The place is deader than I am tonight.”

“Still shook about that thing, I guess,” Clint said. He picked up a glass for the sole purpose of wiping it down, giving him something to fiddle with. Humans felt more comfortable if he was doing _something_ , even if most of them weren’t aware that Clint was more than -- or other than, at least -- human. Tony wasn’t quite sure what Clint was, exactly. Not mortal, at least. More observant than even the most exacting of humans. Someone in the know, at least. “Just crawl out of your coffin for the first time this year?”

“I’ve been busy,” Tony said, waving carelessly. “What thing?”

“Dunno, exactly,” and that was a little odd. Clint usually knew everything. He didn’t always tell, but he usually knew. “Got the humies all het up. Mortal cops, too. People -- our people -- are going missing. Some of the missing turning up dead. There’s been some talk. Some newspaper sharp drew some lines between this and Springheel Jack, or Jack-the-Ripper. ‘Course, that guy used a knife. This one… he’s tearing holes in people.” Clint put the glass down and gave Tony a significant look. “Six, so far. And at least three of them have been licksticks for you, personally.”

Rage swelled. This was Tony’s territory. The humans who bound themselves to him were under his protection -- and that protection had been violated. This could not stand. It _would not_. “Someone’s been killing _my_ people? And no one came to _tell_ me?” Tony’s lip curled into a snarl. “Well. Time to put a stop to whatever this is. How much can you tell me?”

“Not sure it’s directed at you, exactly,” Clint said. He shrugged. “Could be. You piss off anyone who likes to exsanguinate? Humans are freaked, bodies drained of all blood, organs taken out. Lined up, all pretty next to the body. ‘Cept sometimes there’s one missing. Humans think serial killer. It’s pretty sensational. All in the papers. Everyone who’s gone missing… well, the biggest link is they’re all found in Brooklyn. But they’re not all from there.”

“It’s a place to start, anyway,” Tony allowed. “Blood drains... could be another vampire brood trying to move in and scare me off my turf. Or it could be a demon. Been a while since I’ve run into one of those.”

Clint winked. “That you know of.”

Tony grinned, letting his fangs show. “I’d know.” Demons were incredibly unsubtle, as a rule. He dropped a handful of coins on the bar. “So much for play,” he said. “It’s time to go hunting.”

Clint picked up a coin, danced it across his knuckles, and then bit it. “I always like working for you,” he said. “Gold. It’s lovely. But you might want silver, for this.” Clint was like that. Annoying, enigmatic, and far, far too often more right than wrong.

Tony hesitated in the midst of turning away, looked back at Clint. “There’s wyr involved? They don’t drink blood. Or ritually mutilate prey. Not even in a frenzy.”

“You didn’t hear that from me,” Clint said. He didn’t acknowledge Tony’s glare, either, just went back to stacking his glasses and wiping down the bar. That bar was spotless, but Clint was rubbing it vigorously with a white cloth anyway.

Tony hesitated another moment, but finally nodded and turned for the door. He would be a fool to ignore any advice Clint gave him. If he needed silver weapons, he’d need to plan his attack very carefully, indeed.

***

He woke up, laying in the cell. He was always in the cell. His limbs ached like he’d been running hard, but he was always in the cell. Blearily, he shifted until he was on all fours -- there was room enough in the cell for his wolf-self, but not enough to stand as a man. His back hurt. He sat back on his heels and scrubbed at his face.

The muzzle. He was wearing the muzzle again. Like he was some sort of rabid dog, like he’d _bitten_ someone.

He didn’t know where they got it; the muzzle. It shifted with him, no matter what form he was in. Stretching and changing.

Under the muzzle, he rubbed his tongue against his teeth, avoiding the rubber bite guard. His mouth tasted like old pennies. Blood, but how--

_What did I do?_

He stared down at his hands. His fingernails were jagged. His skin was filthy. There were dark red crescents under the remains of his nails. The quicksilver arm, as always, was clean, near glowing in the dark. It ached, it throbbed, like it always did. Dull, swollen pain like a bruise, unless he tried to change. And then it always hurt. Agony that kept him stuck in one form or another. Always.

_Except when it didn’t._

_Always._

Always. Always, except-- he couldn’t remember.

At one point, it hadn’t been there. At one point--

_Why can’t I remember?_

He hitched in a breath, wanting to howl, wanting to scream. The sound that came out of his throat was strangled by the muzzle. Even so, others moved and shifted at the noise. Like they were scared.

He couldn’t smell anything, couldn’t smell their fear, or their anger. But he could sense it. Oppressive, like thick smoke. He blinked, trying to see. The cell -- his cell -- was near the front of the room. There were others. He could see corners and cages.

He could see… a Chair.

He found himself on the far side of the cell, away from the Chair. As if it meant something to him. But he couldn’t remember what.

He knew better than to try to unhook the muzzle. Even under the leather, he could sense it. Liquid silver lining. He was only barely protected from its white hot touch.

_What did I do? Who… who did I hurt? Did I know them?_

He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember anything.

***

Tony didn’t often venture into Brooklyn, preferring the old mansion in Manhattan, but he still had contacts here. There were still those who knew what he was and feared or respected him.

Very little was known about the interlopers, whoever they were. No one saw them come or go. No one had glimpsed the bodies being left to be found. No one heard screams or smelled rotten meat or saw strange auras.

But it was laughably easy to worm through the morgue firewall and find the autopsy photos. Almost as easy as working his way into the NYPD server and making copies of the crime scene shots. It was even more gruesome than Clint had suggested.

The second one he found was a woman who’d been Tony’s blood doll for more than a decade. She was sharp-witted and beautiful and funny. Tony liked her a lot. They’d had some great times together. No more. Now she was a lump of too-pale meat on a cold slab. Tony had to force himself to look; she seemed more naked like this than she’d ever been in his arms.

He looked at all of them, searching for clues the police wouldn’t have seen, or would have misinterpreted.

The claw marks certainly fit the profile for a werewolf, though Tony had never heard of a wyr that killed with claws alone. But there were no toothmarks. And no fur had been reported found by the autopsy, which was practically impossible, if a wyr had done this. He was beginning to reconsider the demon theory, strange though it would be to find a demon so cunning.

He visited the places where the bodies had been found. Scrubbed and sanitized, they still held traces of the killer’s malicious aura. Still smelled, faintly, under the chemical scent of sanitizer, of blood.

Tony could be patient when he wanted. He prowled the streets and alleys, looking for any sign, feeding on muggers and would-be rapists. It was foul blood, stained with the stench of desperation and insanity and hatred, but it was enough to keep him strong and his senses sharp.

There were imps -- human-like, but not quite human -- who scurried in the corners, and who saw but who could rarely be persuaded to speak. Humans took them for vagrants, homeless and down on their luck. A coin or two to keep ill luck away became a beggar’s handout. Madmen could sometimes see the truth of it, but they didn’t like to talk about what they’d seen. Two faces, etched on the same soul.

“They’re training him, you know,” one of them said to Tony. Unasked, the imp peered out of its human disguise, under layers of dirt and ill-fitting clothing and old skin. “Training him to hunt.”

“Training who?” Tony asked. “And how much more training does he need? The hunting has been pretty damned successful.”

“Depends, ancient one,” the imp said. He -- or maybe she, it was hard to tell with imps; they only had gender when they needed one -- patted the ground, marking a spot for Tony to sit. “How much training would someone need, to kill your sire? To spill your heart’s blood on the ground?”

“You’re saying they’re coming for me.” Tony took the offered seat, heedless of his clothes. “Why. Who are they? _Where_ are they?”

“Many heads,” the imp told him. “Cut one off, and two more come in its place. You’re a _power_ , ancient one. Power. Stability. Sanity. What happens to our lovely city, yes? If you die? What happens to all of us, if you could be killed?”

Tony didn’t know what would happen if he died -- or was killed. He certainly didn’t intend to find out. “Chaos,” he muttered. “Possibly a war, depending on who tries to take over.” He pressed his lips together. “Where do I find them?”

“You can see the signs, if you look,” the imp told him. Offered Tony a coin, dirty and ancient and silver. Stamped on one side with a single star, on the other with a skull, surrounded by octopus legs. “Cut off one head… and two shall rise in its place. Leave me with a charm, ancient one, to ward off the one who is being trained?”

Tony gave the imp a silver bracelet from his own wrist. “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”

The imp cackled, darkly amused. “A first, ancient one. To be remembered by one such as yourself.” Tony was pretty sure he was being mocked, a little. His nose tweaked by an imp daring enough to get away with it. The creature would build a reputation, with Tony’s regard backing it up. A little king in a tiny alley, but the creature was right about one thing. If Tony died, there’d be a power struggle to fill the vacuum. A lot of people would get hurt, ones that didn’t have anything to do with it, and didn’t want to be involved.

Tony focused on the coin. He’d seen that tentacled skull somewhere before. Where?

Hadn’t his sire fought them once, long ago? A group… Hydra? Led by a man who’d chosen to be demon-possessed, who worked side by side and ambition to ambition with his demon. Tony had thought all of those who followed the lunatic -- Schmidt? Had that been the name? -- were gone.

_Cut off one head--_

“Oh, no,” Tony said aloud. “Not on my watch.” He would find this lair and snuff it out before it could grow.


	2. Chapter 2

Tony didn’t believe in luck. Or coincidences.

When he’d intercepted a thief -- thinking to take another quick snack -- and found the man wearing the Hydra skull pinned to his collar, that was… that was not luck. He didn’t stumble across the man, he didn’t _happen_ to pick a robber by accident. That was a man thrown in his path, sacrificed by his superiors to see what Tony was up to. To see how close he was getting.

Or, at least, it seemed likely. There was no such thing as _luck_.

The man gave Tony information, seemingly reluctantly, terrified. But his blood hadn’t _tasted_ terrified. It tasted like secret glee and dull cunning. It tasted like an idiot who thought he was getting away with something.

Still, it was the only lead Tony had, and the clock was ticking. He armed himself well, and followed the directions he’d been given to the Hydra’s lair.

He found the secret door (yay!) but hadn’t gone far into the tunnels -- what was it with villains and tunnels? -- when he smelled blood. Fresh enough to be wet, runny. A handprint on the wall. Tony didn’t have the same sense of smell that, say, a wyr would have. But he could tell a lot of things from simple blood.

Between the splatter of blood and the boot prints in the dirt, it seemed someone had been carried this way, not terribly long before. An hour, maybe less. The bleeder was mortal, and that blood _did_ smell like fear. Enough so that Tony felt the prickle of it, on the edge of his skin, like an itch he couldn’t quite scratch.

A soft whine pierced the silence of the tunnel; wolf or dog or wyr, Tony couldn’t tell through the echo.

Tony gripped his silver-inlaid dagger and crept further down the dank tunnel, toward the sound. There were no other voices, just that whine. No sounds of breathing, or the beat of living hearts. “Hello?” He barely breathed the word, ready for the trap to swing shut on him.

Deep under the city, beneath the trains and cars and people, the maze of passages twisted back and forth. Tony turned a corner and stopped dead. (Well, he was already dead, but--)

_Zoo_ was the first word his brain presented him with, and then _menagerie_ and then _prison_. A series of cages dotted the room, some on platforms, others on the worn stone floor. Most of them were empty, and by the smell of things, the empty ones had once had occupants, now gone. A few held corpses, not fresh.

The frontmost cage, made from thick bars that shimmered with runes, held a man. That man stared at Tony from under ragged-cut hair. Tony couldn’t see his face; a mask or muzzle kept him hidden from the eyes down, almost like a robber in a western movie.

It was that man who’d whined, dog-like.

He was missing an arm and a quicksilver limb had been grafted on his body in its place. His skin was furious with scars around it, thick and red and pained. Directed at the limb itself, Tony thought, as if the man had tried to claw it off.

The man made the whining sound again and jerked his chin at--

One final cage held a man, dead or nearly so -- a heart beat, once, twice, a third time. He opened his eyes and looked up. Ho Yinsen, a man who’d once come to Tony for help, traded blood for blood, that he might live long enough for whatever human dreams he aspired to. And he was dying now.

“Yinsen,” Tony growled. Someone would pay for this. Yinsen was _his_. Tony found the door of the cage and examined the lock. There were no keys conveniently hanging from the wall for him to use, so he took hold of the bars, braced, and snapped the lock in two with a sharp, swift jerk. The cage door swung open and Tony knelt to gather the dying man into his arms. “Yinsen, hang in there,” he begged. “I’ll get you some help. You’ll be all right.”

“Stark?” Yinsen turned his head, blinking up at Tony. “No, no, it is… it is too late for that, old friend. It is… over.”

“No, no, no, it’s not too late, it’s never too late,” Tony babbled. “Stay with me, Yinsen, don’t you fade out now.” He raked a fang across his wrist, pressed the wound to Yinsen’s lips. “A little taste to keep you going.”

“No,” Yinsen told him, and turned his face away. “No, they-- they killed my family. So I would tell them, but I didn’t. I didn’t tell them how to find you. My family is dead, and when I leave here, I will see them again. You have… always been a good friend. It is… it is all right, Tony. This… this is what I want. This is what I want.”

Yinsen took another hitching, pained breath. He twitched, shuddering with agony, and then… stopped.

The man in the other cage whined, threw himself at the bars. Tony could see where his shoulder was bruised from repeated attempts. He reached for Yinsen, hand open in mute appeal, then sobbed behind his muzzle.

Tony wanted to sob, as well, but there was no room in him for that. All he had was bright, hot rage. Gently, he lowered Yinsen’s body to the floor and stood up. He went back to the muzzled man and examined the cage, reading what he could of its runes. “I’m going to get you out of there,” he promised. “Do you have a name?”

The man stared at him, eyes silver-blue and fierce. He made a sound behind his muzzle and what little Tony could see of his nose wrinkled. The eyes shifted, turned brilliant, bloody red and then the man screamed, _screamed_ and clawed at the quicksilver arm. Slowly, his eyes shifted back to blue and he lay, panting, in the bottom of his cage.

Here was Clint’s wyr, then. Not an attacker, but a prisoner. “I’m going to get you out,” Tony reiterated. He touched the cage bars gingerly, wary of the spells carved into them, but they didn’t react to simple touch. He tugged at the bars, yanked with all his strength. The cage rattled, but didn’t give.

There had to be a way to open it. Tony looked around the room again, searching for keys or control levers or a computer bank or a keypad. Nothing.

He looked at the lock on the cage again, studied its runes. Tony wasn’t a magician or a reader, but he’d been around long enough to pick up a little. He ran a fingertip over the etched symbols, wracking his brain. That one, there: that was the rune for _strength_. Tony laid the tip of his silver dagger against the metal of the lock.

“You may want to get back,” he told the wyr, who was eyeing the dagger fearfully. He leaned into it and scratched it across the rune, marring its edges. And again, and again, until the scratch was as deep as the rune itself, until the rune had been transformed from a mystical symbol into gibberish and nonsense.

Tony put the dagger away and took hold of the cage door again. Without the magic supporting it, the lock should give way easily to Tony’s strength.

The door all but came off in Tony’s hand, and he flung it across the room. The wyr was backed up into the far corner like a feral animal, sounds like muffled growling or snarling come out from behind the muzzle.

He whined again, then moved forward, slowly, eyes wary on Tony’s face.

Tony backed away, cleared far enough away that the wyr could exit the cage without coming within arm’s reach of Tony. “It’s okay,” he said gently. “You’re free now.” He eyed the muzzle. “Do you-- Do you need help with that?”

The wyr considered Tony, apprehensive, then nodded. Up close, he smelled like stale sweat and oil. His body was covered with bruises, livid across his back and shoulders. He was wearing the same sort of stretchy pants that most of his kind did, enchanted cloth to preserve modesty through a shift. His looked like leather, soft and well-cared for, tight fighting across his thighs. He was barefoot and his feet were filthy, as if he’d been running in his human form.

There was a bright rune at the back of the muzzle, almost mocking with how dainty it was. A rune like that shouldn’t have been able to hold the mask on a child, much less a full grown wyr. The wyr poked the muzzle with one finger, held it up, then gestured to his silver arm. He squeezed his fist closed, like he was… wringing water from a cloth? The gestures didn’t make a lot of sense.

Tony examined the rune again, but it remained delicate and fragile. “Okay,” he said, trying for _calm and soothing_ , “I’m just going to break this, and you should be able to take it off yourself. All right?”

The wyr shuddered, then nodded. He put his hands on the jaws of the muzzle and bowed his head, practically kneeling at Tony’s feet.

“All right.” Tony took hold of the thin leather and snapped through the binding.

The wyr tore it free from his face the instant the rune broke, making a harsh sound in his throat that turned into ragged moans as the muzzle came off. Silver sizzled from the tear, dripping onto the wyr’s skin and he shrieked, smacking at it frantically. He scurried back from the muzzle as the remaining silver inside pooled onto the floor.

He stretched his mouth a few times -- the muzzle, where Tony could see it, had a bite-guard inside it, so not only had his mouth been covered, but it’d been gagged, as well -- before he turned his face up to look at Tony. “My thanks,” he said, voice harsh from disuse.

Tony toed at the pooling liquid silver on the floor, and abruptly those incomprehensible gestures made sense. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I wasn’t certain what you were telling me.” He pointed back toward the tunnel. “Exit’s that way. You can probably follow my trail in, if they haven’t damaged your sense of smell.”

“S’all right,” he growled. “It’s th’ last time they’ll ever do it. I’ll die before they put that thing back on me again.” His eyes glowed red for a moment, then he hissed. “I don’t… don’t fuckin’ know what they did to me.” He glanced back the way Tony had come for a moment, then shook his head. “I’m with you. They evacuated in a hell of a hurry. You’ll want backup.”

Tony thought about protesting -- this poor man had obviously seen abuse enough -- but it was true that he could use backup. Especially from a wyr. “All right,” he said. “I plan to raze this entire complex. They’ll regret hurting my people.” He offered his hand. “I’m Tony.”

The wyr took Tony’s hand, opened his mouth as if to say something, then shrugged. “Don’t know. Don’t know anymore. Had a name, once. _They_ call me Soldier. The… uh, the others. They’re all dead now, but they called me Wolf.”  

“Well. Maybe you’ll remember, eventually. Or not. You let me know what you’d like _me_ to call you, when you figure it out,” Tony said agreeably. “In the meantime, you ready to go destroy some Hydra?”

Wolf nodded. “Point me at ‘em.” He followed along behind Tony, sometimes stopping to sniff at the intersections, when he’d pick a direction, seemingly at random. They were in a longish tunnel, no turns, when he suddenly asked, “What’s _Jericho_?”

A chill ran down Tony’s spine, deeper than the grave in which he’d been buried. “Where did you hear that?”

“It’s what they wanted from your-- Yinsen? They kept askin’ him. They brought him back fr’m maintenance, an’ he was babbling about it. Doesn’t know anything about Jericho. Never heard of it. They knew he was dyin’. Left him behind to slow you down.”

Tony grunted. If they even knew the _name_ Jericho, they knew too much. “It’s... a place,” he said. “Yinsen didn’t know about it. They were wasting time there. I don’t tell anyone where it is. Not many people even know it exists.”

“Ah,” Wolf said. He took the lead for a bit, moving faster, practically loping down the tunnel before turning a sudden corner and snarling with frustration. “They went up--” He was staring at an empty lift tube, the panel sparking and popping where someone had torn it apart. “Street-side. Probably had a vehicle waiting. _Fuck_.”

Tony growled, himself. “I’m sure they’ll turn up again, if they’re after me. Come on, let’s make sure they don’t have anything useful to come back to, here.”

If there was one thing above all that wyr were good at, wholesale destruction was it. Wolf apparently had a lot of anger to get out, and the various weapons rooms, computers, and devices suffered his wrath. He reserved a particularly brutal display for something that resembled a dentist’s chair, only with locks on the arms and legs, and a halo of some sort. By the time Wolf had torn it to pieces -- itty, bitty pieces -- he was breathing hard and his eyes were glowing feral red.

Tony waited until he was pretty sure that Wolf was done, keeping one eye on his inner clock. He didn’t want to pass the day down here if he didn’t have to. “All done? I need to be getting home here shortly.”

Wolf whirled on him, snarling, teeth growing longer and pointy, his face sprouting a sudden three-day beard. “No one’s stopping you, leech.” His snout started pulling away from his face, stretching obscenely, and then he whimpered in pain, the change retracting again. He managed a good snap at his shoulder, teeth digging in and rending the flesh around the quicksilver arm, before he stopped, going full human again. “God _damn!_ ”

“We’ll have to have a look at that, I can see,” Tony said mildly. He’d been called plenty of things worse than _leech_. “That is, if you’re coming with me. Or would you rather go your own way now?”

There was a wildness about the smell of Wolf’s blood, ten times as potent as a human’s. Wolf wiped at the dribble of blood with his flesh hand, hissing at the pain. “Go with you?” as if the thought was alien to him. Then he shrugged. “Got no other way t’go. If you’ll let me?” He offered his hand to Tony, as if to shake it, but with the blood still dripping from his fingers, it took on an entirely different meaning.

Tony shivered back the urge to lick the blood from those fingers; that was _not_ what Wolf was offering. It was hard, though. Wolf smelled so _good_. Tony dug into his pocket and came up with a workshop rag. He put that in Wolf’s hand instead. “Wouldn’t have offered otherwise,” he said. “Come on. I’m in Manhattan, so we’ve got a little bit of a trek. Luckily, traffic is usually pretty light around now.”

Wolf snorted, wiping his hand off. He tucked the soiled rag into his pocket. “ _Traffic_. Do you trust me?” He peered up at the sky, the stars hidden behind smog and clouds and light noise.

“I... suppose I do,” Tony said. He was inviting the wyr into his house, after all. Not that Tony’s sunless rooms weren’t well-protected, but... well.

Wolf ducked down, just a bit. “Climb on, hold on tight, an’ give me the direction.”

“Uh.” Tony looked up and down the deserted street. “Really? All the way to Manhattan?”

“All th’ way,” Wolf promised. “You’re not that heavy. My-- my friend once kept a helicopter from flyin’ off, just by holding on to it.” He blinked a few times. “I… _remember_ that, but… not why he didn’t want it to leave in th’ first place. Weird.”

“Uh. Okay. Sure.” Tony braced his hands on Wolf’s shoulders, careful of the scarring around the quicksilver arm, and climbed on. “Fifth Avenue.”

Tony took it back: wyr were good at total destruction, but they _excelled_ at running. Fresh up on blood, Tony could be faster, but he couldn’t maintain it for very long. Outrunning a wyr, he decided, would probably be impossible. Wolf moved faster than a car. And he could _jump_. Not quite leap a tall building in a single bound, but pretty fucking close. He could climb, too, practically racing up the side of a skyscraper and taking to the rooftops without so much as breathing hard.

By the time they reached Fifth Avenue, Tony wasn’t quite sure where the ground was, and if he’d had a heart to be racing, it would have been trying to beat free of his chest. As it was, he was just relieved to not be a Tony-shaped vampire pancake somewhere.

“That was... an experience,” he managed. It took him a couple of tries to enter the keypad combination for the gate. “And here they say the wyr aren’t suited to city dwelling.”

“Do they say that? I mean, wouldn’t say no t’ a wide open meadow an’ a herd of deer to chase down, but it ain’t called th’ concrete jungle for nothing,” Wolf said.

Tony managed to get the gate open, gestured Wolf in ahead of him, and locked it behind them. Then he led the way around the side of the building to the door Tony actually used, as opposed to the front door, which was a heavily trapped decoy. “You must’ve grown up here -- or in _some_ city -- to be able to do that, though,” Tony observed. He pushed into the living area. It was very modern; Tony had the main rooms of the house redecorated every five or ten years, to keep himself anchored in the present.

“Yeah, I-- dunno. Fuck.” Wolf made an exasperated gesture. “It’s like… you ever got something, like a word, stuck on th’ tip of your tongue, like it’s all ready to roll right out an’ then it’s just fuckin’ gone? I was jus’ gonna say, yeah, I… grew up… something something. It just vanishes, like it’s fuckin’ mist or something. I don’t… know who I am or where I grew up, or anything. An’ I keep feelin’ like I ought to panic about it, that there’s panic, just waiting for me, but I ain’t… I ain’t feelin’ it.”

“Well, give yourself some time,” Tony said. “You were stuck in that place for... god knows how long. It make take a little while to settle out.” He led the way into the kitchen.

“What… uh. What’s the date?”

Tony tugged out his phone -- amazing inventions, cell phones -- and checked the date. “May fourteenth.”

“Huh,” Wolf said. “Missed my birthday this year, I guess. March tenth. But it was winter when-- when… _fuuuuuck_.”

That was months, at least, that he’d been held. Shit. “How old are you now, then?” Tony asked, hoping to stave off a panic attack. “What year were you born?”

“Nineteen seventeen,” Wolf said, automatically.

Tony blinked. He checked the date on his phone again. “Er. I’m not sure how to tell you this, but... wyr do _not_ live to be a hundred years old. Not looking like you.”

Wolf blinked. “What? That… It’s… it’s _nineteen forty-five_. We were… I ain’t… wha--”

Tony was pretty sure in the entire history of history, he was the only person who’d ever seen a wyr faint.


	3. Chapter 3

“Is it stupid to say I know what a computer is?” Wolf leaned against the door, rolling his eyes. “Don’t know _why_ I know it, but I do.” Wolf’s amnesia was retrograde and autobiographical; his memories of who he was, and what he’d done, all seemed to have vanished. But his nondeclarative memory was spot on; the wyr could ride a bike, drive a car, disassemble a gun, scramble an egg. And his semantic memory seemed intact, as long as Tony could catch him off guard with a question. He knew the capital of Rhode Island and could do math in his head well enough that even Tony was impressed.

“Not at all stupid,” Tony assured him. “The brain is a complex and confusing thing. And we still have no idea what they did to you.” He finished entering the parameters for the search and launched it, then spun the chair around to face Wolf. “Do you want to use the computer?”

Wolf shrugged. “Might try,” he said. “Might be like th’ pen--” That had been a disaster. Wolf tried to take a pen up with his left hand, the quicksilver arm, to scrawl his signature. He’d gotten two letters out, what looked like a J and part of a vowel, before the arm seized up and the scars along his shoulder went livid. “--or might be like the gun.” That experiment had gone well, if one considered having a munitions expert with a faulty memory as part of his household “going well.” There hadn’t been a human weapon that Wolf didn’t know inside and out. His aim was uncanny.

He took the chair when Tony abandoned it, and pulled himself up to the keyboard like he knew what he was doing and had done it hundreds of times, the muscle memory ingrained.

Wolf stared at the computer screen for a long moment, then opened an actual command prompt and rattled off a dozen commands. “Hail fuckin’ Hydra,” he said, as the portal opened, displaying the tentacled skull in lurid red.

_Welcome, James Barnes. Command?_

“James Barnes,” Tony said thoughtfully, looking over his shoulder. “Think that’s you?”

“‘S this traceable? Might ping somethin’ here,” Wolf wondered. He scratched at his chin with his right hand, then scrubbed at the back of his neck fitfully. “Name… I… ain’t sure, but man it feels… weird. Like pokin’ at a bruise. Kinda soft an’ not quite...  right?”

“Well, it’s a starting point, anyway,” Tony said. “Don’t worry about the connection being traceable; I designed the anonymizer on it myself.”

“Access records, James Barnes,” Wolf typed, muttering to himself while he did it.

The menu selections from that command were… impressive. Military records, health files, missions, transfers, advanced lycan studies, serum transfusions, maintenance and security. Wolf swallowed, moused over, and selected military.

A flicker, and then the file opened.

That was… well, if it wasn’t Wolf’s face, youthful, with a half-smile, dressed in the ugly brown military uniform common to enlisted men during the Second World War, then it was a reasonably good imitation.

“James Buchanan Barnes, aka Bucky,” Wolf read. He pushed himself away from the computer, rolling back several inches. “ _Bucky_. Who th’ hell is Bucky?” He stared at the picture.

“Looks like Bucky is you,” Tony said. He reached for the mouse and clicked over a page: vital records. “March 10, 1917,” he read from the Date of Birth line. He glanced at Wolf-- _Bucky_ \-- sidelong. “You okay, there?”

“Don’t know, really,” Bucky said. “It’s like lookin’ at a stranger, except in all the ways that it ain’t. Why… I should be dead. I should be dead of old age, even if I never went t’ war.” That was very true; wyr weren’t any more long lived than their human near-kin, and generally less so, since their blood ran hot. Wyr, the saying went, did not often die peacefully in their sleep.

“That’s... true,” Tony allowed, eyeing the photo of the young man in his uniform. Tony had been around for that war, and any number of wars that had preceded it. He did still vaguely remember the panic that he’d gone through when he’d realized that he was well past what should have been the end of his mortal span, though. It was difficult to comprehend, to come to terms with.

He looked at Bucky again. The wyr’s eyes were locked on that photograph, his breath a little fast but not quite to the panic stage yet. Tony clicked over to the health files. Maybe Hydra had documented what, exactly, they’d done to Bucky to make him so long-lived.

_...subject shows more promise… exposure to trace amounts of sanguineous hemoglobin shows positive results, increase in strength, stamina, resistant to normal lycan weaknesses…_

… _increased sensitivity to sunlight, reduce formula…_

… _subject’s cells show no signs of natural aging. Each cell copies over perfectly…._

… _noted limitations, amputation not reversible, consultation with Dr. Zola for replacement…_

… _subject and formula perfected. Note: Subject proven loyalties are questionable…_

… _wipe him. Start again..._

Tony frowned at the notes. They weren’t detailed enough to work out _exactly_ what had been done, but there was no avoiding reading between the lines. “Whatever they did to you, it includes vampire blood.”

“Oh, no, you’re not supposed to do that shit,” Bucky said, immediately. By rote, like a child might say they weren’t allowed to climb on the countertops. His eyes darted around, as if to see if anyone was listening to them. “Everyone knows that. Leech blood makes wyr _tainted_. S’posed to be evil. Wrong. It could kill you. And if it doesn’t… it can turn you rabid. Like, the whole pack’ll hunt you down.”

Tony held up his hands helplessly. “It looks like they combined it with some other things as well, but... that’s what they did, according to this. Along with devising some way to selectively erase your memories.”

“Oh, yeah, this is _great_ ,” Bucky said, spreading his hands. “Now I can’t go home, even if I had a home left to go to. What the hell, _why_? Why would they--” He stared at his hands for a long moment. “Blood… blood under my nails and-- I… what did I do? What… what _did they make me do_?” He was breathing faster, backing away like the computer had suddenly turned toxic. He knocked the chair over and kept going until he hit the wall, cringing in fear.

Ah, and _there_ was the panic. Tony abandoned the computer and went over to Bucky, trying to catch his eyes without touching him. “Hey, breathe, it’s going to be okay. In and out, like this, try to breathe with me.”

Tony didn’t actually breathe very often, just enough air to talk, most of the time. But he _could_. He took big breaths, in and out, over and over, until Bucky started to match him. “There you go, that’s better. You’re going to be okay, even if it doesn’t feel like it now.”

“I can’t, I… can’t… I can’t _remember_ ,” Bucky whined. “You smell good.” Bucky breathed in and out, gradually pulling himself closer to Tony until his nose was buried in the crook of Tony’s neck. Tony had known a few wyrs, beyond the general council meetings that were held from time to time, but none of them had ever said _that_ before. On the rare occasion that Tony was in the same room with a wyr for any length of time, there was nose-wrinkling and face-pulling going on. Like vampires smelled _dead_ or something -- which they were, admittedly, but humans didn’t really notice.

This probably wasn’t the time to point out to Bucky that he was behaving unusually, though. “Okay,” Tony said. He hesitated a moment, then gently stroked Bucky’s hair. “Just breathe,” he advised. He didn’t know what to do about Bucky’s missing memories. Or the possibility that Bucky might not _want_ to remember. Whatever Hydra had been doing with him for the last seventy years, it couldn’t have been pleasant.

“Okay,” Bucky repeated, like he was echoing Tony. His lips buzzed against Tony’s skin, warm and soft and alive. This close to the wyr, Tony could hear his heart beating, lush and wet as it moved blood through his veins. Could feel the heat of his skin, the way his muscles flexed under his skin. Bucky shifted just a little and his mouth was pressed against Tony’s throat, an imitation of the very intimate act of _drinking_. “Tell me what to do. Help me. Please?”

“Of course I’m going to help you,” Tony said, without even really thinking about it. Bucky’s closeness was damned distracting. Tony was going to have to feed soon, or it would drive him mad. “Maybe we’ve done enough with the computer for tonight, hm? What if we just get some rest -- and you probably need to eat, too.”

“Yeah, okay,” Bucky said, not moving away at all, breathing in, deep and slow, the heat of his breath moving Tony’s hair as he exhaled. “Yeah. Yeah, we should--” It wasn’t a bite, not quite that. Bucky pressed his lips against Tony’s skin, something in between a lick and a nuzzle against the side of Tony’s throat, right where another vampire might have bitten Tony, soft and warm and wet. Bucky drew back, eyes dark and curious and unafraid. “That’s… interesting.”

“What is?” Tony managed. That lack of fear was stunning. Or if not fear, then certainly hatred, or contempt. Even Tony’s most dedicated blood dolls were afraid of him, at least a little -- it was a fear they enjoyed, a thrill that they sought out, but it was fear nevertheless. It was intoxicating, looking into Bucky’s eyes and finding them calm and warm.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Not ‘xactly. But it’s like a pull… somehow. Th’ closer I get to you, the more I feel it. You… make it stop hurting.” He ran a hand down Tony’s arm, casual, almost _affectionate_ , until he cupped Tony’s hand in his own. “It’s strange, I was freakin’ out and then--” He lifted Tony’s hand, rubbing his cheek against Tony’s palm. “You don’t feel it?”

Tony shook his head, mystified. “What do you feel?” Vampires had many powers. Calming wasn’t one of them. Not without exerting control, which Tony wasn’t sure would work on a wyr even if he tried it.

“ _Connection_ ,” Bucky said. “Like you’re th’ most important thing in my life, an’ I don’t even know why. I…” He ducked his head again, nuzzling at Tony’s throat. “Just… feel it.”

Tony would have denied it -- but why _had_ he invited a stray wyr into his lair? And Bucky’s fascination with Tony’s neck should have felt more dangerous than it did. He wasn’t sure about a _connection_ \-- whatever it was, it didn’t seem to affect him as strongly as it did Bucky -- but there was... _something_ there. “Maybe you’re right,” he murmured, brushing a hand over Bucky’s hair again.

***

The one thing Bucky _had_ expected was that Tony's house -- a vampire's house, a leech's house -- would be nice. Vampires were long lived, they always seemed to have money, power. Influence.

Bucky had to admit, Tony didn't disappoint. The house was huge, not at all lacking in style. Or amenities.

Tony had gone out. _Hunting_.

It was probably for the best that Bucky didn’t accompany him.

Bucky was in a vampire's lair. Alone. _Prowling_.

He'd found the kitchen, which was good. And there was food there, also good. Most of it was frozen, or tinned, as if Tony liked to have food for his mortal friends but not very often. That was okay.

Bucky found a spoon and a can opener. Tinned pasta. Gross. Guess not all things from the future were good. But it was food, and it would do until the steaks that Bucky found had thawed out. He wasn’t sure how to operate the fancy stove that was in the kitchen, but he’d also found a firepit in the back yard. He could make do with some kindling and one of the oven racks if he had to.

Tony’s lair was huge, and that wasn’t even counting all the above-ground, windowed floors that the vamp couldn’t even _use_.

Bucky sniffed out the hidden door -- Tony’s scent went right to it and vanished, so the door itself wasn’t hard to find, and he might think about pointing that out as a security upgrade -- and then spent even longer figuring out the combination, but it was a four digit punch code and with Tony’s scent on only a few of the buttons, it didn’t take him long.

He was pretty sure the keypad was the polite, vampire equivalent of a locked door. A suggestion that what was in here wasn’t for humans.

Bucky ignored that niggling voice that said maybe he shouldn’t go nosing around, that he was a guest. He was a werewolf, not a magpie.

Didn’t matter; he was curious and Tony wasn’t there anyway.

Something else was urging him forward.

The nicer, but less modern, parts of the house were underground. Paintings lost for centuries hung on the walls. The rugs were hand knotted, older than the United States. The furniture, likewise, was old. Statues and suits of armor were tucked in display nooks. An original Wurlitzer hummed merrily to itself in one corner, just waiting, it seemed, for someone to play a record.

Bucky selected a song and the smooth sounds of Bing Crosby filled the corridor.

“Nice,” he said. He scraped out the bottom of the tin, licking the last of the terrible tomato sauce from the back of the spoon.

More rooms, more art. A whole floor dedicated to a swimming pool.

Four floors below the city, Bucky finally found it.

A smallish room, decorated with red and gold hangings, the carpet was thick and warm. There were sconces on the walls. It should have been a warm, cheerful room.

Except that in the very center of the room, on a raised dais, was a coffin.

For a coffin, it was nice enough. Ornate marble carvings -- perhaps of Tony’s life, back when he was still mortal -- surrounded a brass and wood box. The crate itself was simple, if old. There were a few inches of space between casket and vault, filled about halfway with dirt.

Tony’s native soil.

This, he knew. This was where someone could kill a vampire.

Bucky recoiled from that thought. He didn’t want to kill Tony.

Tony had saved him, Tony was trying to _help_ him.

Bucky ran his fingers over the coffin. It was old, but probably not as old as Tony was. There would be more than one; a vampire as old as Tony would keep several safe places. A vampire as old as Tony…

Bucky snatched his hand back from the coffin as if it had burned him. He wasn’t here for this, he was… he was a guest in Tony’s house, for fuck’s sake.

He backed out of the room, hurried back to the stairwell. He didn’t belong down here. This was _wrong_.   

Bucky had just made it to the corridor with the Wurlitzer when the music went quiet. And under that sudden cloak of silence, he could hear footsteps. Slow, dragging, like someone leaning heavily against the wall. Staggering.

Bucky sucked in a breath. Had he, in his stupid curiosity, led an intruder right to Tony’s sanctuary?

Well, if he had, the only right thing to do would be to capture the interloper. He sunk into a low crouch and crept forward, scenting the air, but all he could smell was Tony--

Tony stumbled through the doorway, leaning heavily on the wall, the other hand pressed to his chest. Blood trailed from his mouth, and the scent of it was not quite right, too sweet, with a bitter aftertaste that lingered unpleasantly in the back of Bucky’s throat and burned there.

Even as Bucky watched, he took another step, swayed, and crashed to his knees with a moan of pain.

“Tony?” The can dropped from Bucky’s fingers, hitting the floor, and he dashed to the vampire’s side. “Tony, what-- ug, you stink, what happened? Are you--” _Dying_? That was the wrong word. “You’re hurt. What… come on--” Without giving it another thought, he scooped Tony up like a bride, holding him close. Back the way he’d come, the best, safest place for Tony to be, his crypt. Where he could rest and recover and… what the hell was that smell? It seemed to be leaking from Tony with the blood. Like bitter almond.

Tony dragged in a breath to talk, and it whistled in his lungs. “Poison,” he gasped out. “Hydra.”

He pushed into the crypt, cradling Tony. “Here, almost here,” he said. “Did you-- you drank it? You gotta sick it up, Tony. Come on.” Bucky half-carried, half dragged Tony over to an ornate basin near one wall. “Get it out, an’ I’ll get you over to the coffin, it’s okay. It’ll be okay. I’ll take care of you.”

Tony shook his head. “Can’t-- blood. Need it. Too much.” His hands were shaking where they gripped the sides of the basin.

“You are going to die,” Bucky told him. “ _Again_.” He stared around the room as if there was something that could help him. A fridge full of donor blood would have been a damn good-- “Get it out, Tony, and… you can drink from me.”

Tony lifted his head to stare at Bucky. His eyes were rimmed in blood, but even so, they looked shocked. “Wyr don’t,” he rasped. “Never.”

“You are _dying_ ,” Bucky told him. “We’ll worry about what we shouldn’t do, later. I’ll bleed into that damn tin of Chef Boyardee if you want, or you can take it from the source, but get the poison out so I can fucking _help you_! Don’t you fuckin’ die on me. Not now.”

Tony stared at him for a minute longer, then nodded once, briefly. He leaned over the basin and for a long moment, nothing happened. Then he vomited, and Bucky had been to war, even if he couldn’t quite remember it, he knew he’d seen horrifying things, but nothing seemed quite as awful as the gush of black, foul-smelling gore that poured from Tony’s mouth to ooze down the sides of the basin.

Tony heaved again, and then a third time, though that time little came up. He staggered back a step, then, and his skin was even paler than it had been before, nearly paper-white, seeming to glow in the dark room.

He swayed on his feet for a moment, and then his head snapped up, his eyes locking on Bucky, glinting gold even as they found their focus on the column of Bucky’s throat. He shook even harder, his entire body trembling. “Need...”

“I know,” Bucky told him. “I know. It’s all right.” It took everything in him to tip his head back, to show off his throat, vulnerable and fragile. Fighting every instinct he had that said a starving vampire was dangerous, deadly. He drew Tony in, cupped the back of Tony’s head as the vampire’s mouth moved over the pulse point. “Go on.”

There was pain, as Tony’s fangs descended; silver brilliant, _blinding_ pain and Bucky gasped, arching into Tony’s embrace. But he didn’t struggle, and he didn’t pull back. _Drink, drink of my blood..._


	4. Chapter 4

The Thirst was all-consuming, a burning fire in his veins, bigger than him, bigger than _anything_. He hadn’t felt Thirst like this since...

Everything was blurred and coated in red, like looking through a pane of stained glass. Looking into the light and warmth that he could never know again.

There was blood, close at hand, good blood, _strong_ blood, and Tony lunged for it, unthinking, gasped in relief as the first drops touched his tongue, even though that only made the Thirst rage in him, demanding more and more and _more_.

The first mouthful that he swallowed was the utter and perfect bliss of the absence of pain. Like dumping a shovelful of snow onto a fire, the Thirst guttered and hissed, and then it leapt even higher, urging him on, scalding him like steam.

Tony whined helplessly and drank more, and more. The blood -- it was different, somehow. It crackled in his throat and through his limbs like electricity, like the moment of sexual release but sustained, drawn out into long, juddering minutes.

The Thirst subsided, unable to withstand that onslaught of power. Tony became aware that there was a hand cupping his head, another at his back, holding him close. Who... What...

_Bucky_ , he recalled suddenly.

He jerked back, terror-stricken. How much had he taken, in his frenzy? “ _Shit!_ Oh, fuck, I’m sorry, I’m-- Are you-- How bad, how much, damn it, don’t be--”

Bucky went boneless in Tony’s arms, his head lolling back. His eyelashes fluttered and he made an effort to open his eyes, gazing up at Tony with pupils so blown his eyes were nearly black. A thin trickle of blood dripped down from the neat little puncture marks on his neck. “You-- you are--” Bucky tried to reach up for him, his movements weak. “You are th’ most beautiful thing I ever saw.”

Not dead, thank the God that had spurned him. _Not yet_. Tony smiled weakly for the wyr, then licked up the trail of blood, shivering as that electric sensation of Bucky’s blood rippled through him again. “Hang in there,” he said. “Stay with me. We’re going to get you something to eat and drink, and you’ll be all right.” Bucky _had_ to be all right. _Had to_.

“Someone needs t’ teach you,” Bucky said, “what human food is supposed to taste like. Spaghetti-O’s are nasty.” He took a few breaths. “Sorry, I was-- nosin’ around. Shouldn’t have been down here. Are… are _you_ all right?” He struggled to sit up, then, reaching for Tony, worry written all over his features.

“Am I--” Tony shuddered all over. “I could have _killed_ you. Are you _insane_?”

“Jury’s still out,” Bucky said. “You were dying, what was I supposed to do? Couldn’t let that happen…” He cupped the side of Tony’s face, gentle, rubbed his thumb against Tony’s bottom lip as if cleaning up a smudge.

“Was I?” Tony tried to remember what happened, but everything was shapeless and dark. He remembered going out in search of one of his blood dolls, because... Because the smell of Bucky’s blood was driving him crazy, and he needed to _not_ be hungry. He hadn’t gotten very far, actually, before he’d found one, a tall, slender youth. He’d been swaying a little, maybe drunk, Tony had thought -- but that wasn’t a problem; Tony’s body would metabolize the alcohol fairly quickly. He remembered feeling the blood in his mouth, warm and sweet, and...

And then... And then pain. A blur of pain. He vaguely remembered making it back to the mansion. Had no idea how he’d gotten through the gate or the door, or past the locks that opened the crypt passages. He dimly recalled Bucky helping him, holding him...

Tony frowned. “Did you... You _let_ me drink from you.”

“You weren’t in any shape t’ force me. It’s okay. I offered. Thought you were gonna straight up die rather than take me up on it, too. Idiot,” Bucky scolded fondly. Fond? No one was fond of vampires. Even people who didn’t hate them… Tony had colleagues, acquaintances, blood dolls who let him drink from them for money or prestige, or for the little bits of blood he’d sometimes give in return that made them stronger and healthier. He didn’t have _friends_. Even other vampires tended to be rivals or allies. He barely knew what it looked like, having someone be fond of him.

“You... You offered.” Wyr didn’t give blood to vampires. That was... that was a _fact_. It was like the sun offering to rise in the west. Tony licked his lips, tasted a hint of that sparkling zing of Bucky’s blood. If all wyr blood was this potent, this strong, Tony could understand why vampires might covet it. “You, I... Thank you.” It was grossly inadequate.

“You’re welcome. Apparently Hydra’s fed me enough vampire blood. Might as well let you have some of it back.” He made a face at that, as if he’d confessed something taboo and shocking. “Come on, up, up. Let’s get you in your coffin for th’ day. You need rest. I’ll… I’ll stand guard. Well, sleep guard, probably, but I’d like to fuckin’ see someone try to sneak past a sleepin’ wyr.”

“Wait.” Tony locked his knees, resisting Bucky’s gentle nudge toward the coffin. “You can _remember_ Hydra feeding you vampire blood?” He hadn’t wanted to admit it, before, had denied that it ever happened.

Bucky flushed, which was astonishing, given how much of his blood Tony had taken. “Yeah, I think they must have,” he said. He sighed, looking up at Tony, as if ashamed. “Maybe more than a few, I don’t… quite remember.”

“It didn’t hurt you?” That was the common wisdom -- that vampire blood would injure, even kill a wyr. It was rumored to drive them mad. It was one of the many delicate points that kept the two races hung in balance.

“Obviously that was a lie. Or a myth, maybe. Or there’s somethin’ wrong with me. They mighta added something to it, maybe?” Bucky rocked back and forth, almost like he was comforting himself, hands lightly cupping his own elbows. “They… I have this one, really vivid memory. I dunno, feels like a dream, like maybe someone else’s dream that they told me about, but it was still me. The first-- I think it was the first time. I thought it _would_ kill me. I think _they_ thought it would kill me. Almost wished it _had_ killed me. They wanted to see it, maybe. Build a weapon from it. That’s not what happened. I almost-- I was a damn three legged wolf at the time and weak and exhausted an’ in pain, and it made me stronger. _Lots_ stronger. I almost got away. Later they used that… There’s, I guess, a healing element to it. I think they needed it, to graft this damn thing on an’ keep me alive at the same time.”

Tony’s eyes were drawn to the angry seam where the metal arm met the flesh of Bucky’s shoulder. He traced that line with one finger as if hypnotized, then jerked his gaze back up to Bucky’s face. “Huh.” That was the result if you fed some vampire blood to a normal human, of course -- one of the reasons blood dolls were never difficult to come by -- but Tony had never heard of a wyr who’d tried it. Or at least, he’d never heard of one who’d survived it. “Where were they getting vampire blood to feed you, I wonder.” He frowned up at Bucky, pondering it. “So if I gave you back some of the blood you just gave me, now...?”

Bucky chuckled. “Ouroboros-like, we would devour ourselves? I don’t know.”

“You need _something_ ,” Tony said. “Blood, or a _hell_ of a lot of food. I don’t know how much of your blood I took, but it was well more than my usual feeding. Quite possibly enough to kill a human.” He grimaced. It had been a century since the last time he’d gotten careless enough to kill on the hunt.

“Wyr are pretty damn hard to kill,” Bucky pointed out. “What… what do you do with a human? I mean, I really can’t bite you effectively in this form, and even if I could shift these days, I don’t think you’d want a wolf bite, either.”

That brought Tony up short again. “You can’t shift?”

“Hurts too much,” Bucky said, jerking his chin at his metal arm. “There’s silver in the mix. Just enough to ache like hell as a man, but the closer I get to my wolf, the more it burns. Like to rip the damn thing off, like it turns to lava. I haven’t… I mean, sometimes. I dream. I dream about running on four legs and _killing_.” His eyes grew faded, almost nostalgic somehow, if nostalgia was an emotion heavily painted with regret.

Tony eyed the arm again, with distaste. “They really are sick bastards. First thing we’ll do, once we’ve chased them off, is make you a better arm. In the meantime...” He lifted his wrist to his mouth and dragged one fang across the skin, almost relishing the bright spark of pain it raised as the blood welled up. He held out his arm. “Here.”

Something wild, feral almost, lit in Bucky’s gaze as he tracked the brilliant droplets of blood on Tony’s arm. His nostrils flared, scenting. His lip curled back, showing off teeth, and Tony had the sudden, disconcerting feeling of being something small and injured in the same waters as a shark.

And then Bucky went to his knees. Took Tony’s hand in his own and very, very gently sniffed at his wrist.

Bucky’s tongue was almost hot, several degrees warmer than a human’s, and he licked Tony’s wrist, cleaning the trail of blood in a single swipe.

An audible click as he swallowed. The wyr stiffened, his muscles jerking as if he’d been galvanized. His eyes rolled back until just the whites were showing as he twitched, spasmed--

Tony had time enough to be terrified that Bucky’s memory had been wrong, or he’d been lied to, or something, and that the wyr was going to die, right there, Tony’s blood in his mouth--

Bucky shuddered again, falling to his hands and knees, body writhing. “Back… back off, back off, Tony, move, get away!” Bucky heaved, like he was going to vomit, and then looked up, eyes glowing as red as a traffic light, muzzle stretching out, elongating.

Tony backed away on instinct more than out of his own will, those eyes boring into his brain, filled with rage and hunger. “Fuck-- What happened? What went wrong?”

Bucky threw his head back, showing off a vulnerable throat, the pulse throbbing, too fast. Raised a hand, watching it stretch and darken with thick, grey hair. Fingernails thickened, grew. Curved into claws. He pushed up, arched back, arms curling, stretching, then-- the silver metal arm, quicksilver, _shifted_. Lost its form as human, and then reshaped. Like the damn special effects from the _Terminator_ movies.

Every bone in Bucky’s body crackled, popped, shifted, reshaping itself, and he howled in a strange mix of anguish and impossible joy.

And then there was a wolf sitting there, panting. Forepaws, one flesh, one quicksilver, tucked neatly under a huge body.

“Oh my god,” Tony breathed. No _wonder_ the arm hurt when Bucky tried to shift, if it had enough quicksilver in it to do this. He dropped to one knee, putting his eyes just slightly below the wolf’s. “How?” he whispered. “It was the blood, wasn’t it. You _can_ shift, but it takes _vampire blood_ to trigger.”

Wolves looked very strange when they nodded; his muzzle moved down, then back to resting, almost formal and solemn. He got to all four paws and shook himself out, sending loose hairs spraying around as he inspected himself. Tony had seen some shifted wyr before, but Bucky was _huge_. A good two hands taller than Tony, bulky through the shoulders, with enormous paws.

It was a disconcerting sensation, not being top of the food chain all of the sudden. Bucky moved closer, huge nose sniffing at Tony’s hair. A wyr that could drink vampire blood and not die; that could, in fact, _eat a vampire_. Bucky whined, resting his chin on top of Tony’s head.

“Yes, I’m short, I get it.” It was hard to maintain a sense of fear and awe when Bucky was acting like a spoiled pet. Tony ducked back out from under Bucky’s chin and stood up again. “When I was human, I was actually quite tall, you know. Modern humans are freaks of nature.”

Bucky tipped his enormous head to one side, cocking an ear. Pushed at Tony with his snout, back toward the coffin. _Go to bed._ It was like being scolded by his mother, who’d died so long ago, Tony could barely remember her.

“Are you always this bossy?” Tony wondered. Bucky nudged him again, and Tony threw up his hands in surrender. “Fine. But while I’m sleeping, you need to go eat something. And hydrate. I took a lot, you’ll need to recharge.” He could still feel Bucky’s blood coursing through him, crackling with energy, but he could also feel the sun rising, could feel the lassitude seeping into his limbs. He could fight it for a while, if he had to, and he didn’t actually _have_ to sleep in his coffin. But if he’d just been poisoned... he was probably better off spending the day on his home earth. It would rejuvenate him better than any other rest.

He climbed into his coffin, and the warmth and strength of his homeland radiated out of the soil and suffused his bones. It was like climbing into a hot bath after a long day. He sighed as he relaxed into it.

He was barely awake, just enough to crack his eyelids open, as Bucky dragged in a whole armful of blankets that smelled of Tony’s cedar chest, made a nest of them on the floor near Tony’s coffin, and curled up on them to sleep. He made a soft, chuffing sound.

The world’s biggest watchdog, Tony thought, scandalously.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This would be the chapter with the scene inspired by [beir's GORGEOUS art](https://beir.tumblr.com/post/150577021263/)...

“They’re killing my people,” Tony snarled, pacing. “Deliberately taunting me. It _cannot stand_.”

Bucky glanced up from the book he was thumbing through, one of the better, more accurate histories of the last fifty years or so, according to Tony, who’d lived through those years. Bucky… hadn’t. Or, at least, he couldn’t remember most of it, so it was almost the same as pulling a Rip Van Winkle. Being able to shift was nice; he’d spent a few days in his wolf form, taking strength from it, the same way Tony took strength from sleeping in his coffin, Bucky thought. It was an interesting parallel, at least.

He wasn’t sure if there was some sort of time limit on how long his arm could maintain the shift, or if he ran out of useable vampire blood, or what, but earlier in the evening, the arm had begun to itch so badly that he shifted back in self-defense.

“They’ve almost nailed your ass to the wall twice now,” Bucky pointed out. “Don’t go off on a tear ‘cause you’re pissed. Then you’ll be dead -- permanent-like -- an’ who’s gonna take care of your people then?” Being human at least had the advantage that he could, in fact, argue with Tony.

Tony growled wordlessly, paced the room another two times, and huffed. “What am I supposed to do, then? Just let them walk in and take over?”

He rubbed at his chin. “They’re scared of you,” he said. “When you found me, they… they didn’t have a choice. They were runnin’ scared. They left me behind, an’ Zola was so fuckin’ pissed about it. Angry with-- fuck, lost it ‘again. But… I remember thinkin’ that something worse was comin’. Something worse… but it was you.”

He’d tried, then, so damn hard to shift, not wanting to die on his knees in that fuckin’ cell, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t change, and he was going to die. And then Tony walked in, full of rage, but also… righteous fury. Concern and grief for the dying man. Compassion for Bucky. It would have been so easy for Tony to just leave him, to--

“I _am_ worse,” Tony swore. “They _should_ be scared of me. And I’m going to teach them why.”

“You know, they don’t… they don’t know you have me,” Bucky said, slowly. “They’re taunting you. Taunt ‘em back. On your terms.”

Tony turned to look at him, head cocked curiously. “What are you thinking of?”

“They left me behind, but they didn’t want to,” Bucky said. “They didn’t have time to-- _preserve the Asset_. They might have assumed you killed me, or left me to die when you destroyed their lair. Who would have thought a vampire would take in a stray wyr? Even if you did let me out, most would have just let me go my own way. No one would ever believe that you’d _befriend_ me. Why would they?”

That pull, that… connection. They didn’t explore it, didn’t talk much about it, really. But there was something there, all right. Something. Like two wayward planets, Bucky had wandered into Tony’s orbit and couldn’t seem to -- _didn’t want to_ \-- break free. No one could have predicted that. No one would even imagine it.

“You want to draw them out, make them come to you? Show them you have me,” Bucky suggested. “Like… like a trophy or a spoil of war. They’ll come to try to recover me.”

Tony looked at him, looking him over, as if mentally measuring him. “I could imply I’m willing to trade you for them leaving my territory,” he mused. His eyes flicked up to Bucky’s. “I wouldn’t.”

“Even if you would,” Bucky said, “they _wouldn’t_. They might agree, but they wouldn’t do it. But you could draw some of them out. They’d come to negotiate. To try to talk to you, or take me back by force. Either way, you set the trap.”

Tony nodded slowly, tapping absently at his chest. “And you-- You’re willing to do it? To play along?”

Not like it wasn’t at least half true. He’d do anything Tony asked him to do. “Yeah,” he said. “I want to help.”

Tony stepped close and drew a slow line down Bucky’s throat with the tip of his finger, looking thoughtful. “I think I know just the place.”

Bucky shivered at Tony’s touch, the way his skin was soft, supple, and still cold. There was no sense in denying it; the way it sparked desire in him. “Gonna put on a show and lure us in some snakes,” Bucky suggested.

“Yes,” Tony said. When his fangs flashed like that, he looked particularly vicious. It was probably not right to find that so attractive.

***

Tony didn’t usually go for the whole vampire-goth “look”. It took too long to put on, and it was highly susceptible to getting ruined when Tony got distracted and decided to take apart an engine or rewire the house. If he showed up at Club Tyranny in his usual loose jeans and hoodie, though, no amount of money or length of fang was going to get him peaceably past the bouncer. Not to mention that he wanted to attract attention.

So he’d decided to go whole hog, with a blood-red skirt trimmed in a froth of black lace around his knees, and a simple leather corset that angled his waist and actually gave him something that approached cleavage. Fingerless lace gloves -- opera-length, of course -- waited to be pulled on in the car. He’d trimmed his goatee until the edges were sharp enough to cut, and layered his eyes with kohl and delicate lines. His skin was powdered so it would maintain its paleness and gleam opalescent under the club’s blacklights, but he’d lined just the inner edge of his lips with deep red so they’d look like he had just taken a mouthful of blood.

He was debating between shit-kicking combat boots or his five-inch Louboutin stilettos when the door opened and Bucky came in.

Bucky was dressed much more simply, though his shirt matched Tony’s skirt and his jeans hugged his thighs in ways that ought to be illegal. He’d tied back his hair, and already put on the thick, platinum-studded collar that Tony had given him -- it looked strong enough to restrain a yeti, and would withstand a fair amount of tugging, but there was a hidden seam just under Bucky’s left ear that would pop handily if Bucky yanked at it hard enough -- or if he was forced to shift.

Tony caught up the dangling leash and tugged Bucky toward him with a slow smile. “It’s too bad we have business to conduct,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind showing you off for real.”

Bucky curled his lip back, showing off his teeth and giving a throaty little growl that sent a shiver down Tony’s spine. “Guard dog, or pet?” he wondered, moving closer and sniffing at Tony’s throat, letting his breath whisper through Tony’s hair.

Tony hummed thoughtfully. “If we want them to think I’m able and willing to trade you back, then probably pet. That you’re dangerous should never be in question.”

“Pet, hmmm?” Bucky mused. “Are you going to tell me I’m a good boy? Or order me to get down?” He dropped to one knee, looking up at Tony with a heart-stopping mix of wide eyes and pursed lip.

“I guess that depends,” Tony said, cupping Bucky’s chin lightly in his hand. “Are you going to _be_ a good boy?”

Bucky’s eyelids drooped and he gazed up with infinite tenderness, before a smirk took over his expression. “Ain’t likely.”

Tony laughed and somehow resisted the urge to lean over and kiss that smirk right off Bucky’s face. “Oh, before I forget, one last little accessory for you.” He opened the cabinet and took out the replica of Bucky’s muzzle that he’d made -- without the deadly silver lining and horrible bite gag, of course.

Bucky drew in a breath, like a splash of cold water on a hot pan. Scrambled to his feet and backed up several steps until he hit the wall on the far side of the room, hands up in a reflexive warding position. “Tony,” he gasped, “no, oh, no no no _no_.”

Tony let it dangle from his fingers, twisted it to show Bucky the soft interior. “It’s not the same,” he promised. “I wouldn’t do that to you, it’s just a-- a _mask_ , something to make them think you’re less dangerous than you actually are. And it’s got -- it’s got a little bit of my blood in there, where you can reach it if you need it.” He pointed at the small, unobtrusive plastic tube to one side that led up between the layers of the thing.

Bucky was shivering all over as he crossed the room and sank down to his knees in front of Tony. “You do it--” he said, voice trembling. “I… I can’t.”

The mask went over his face, leaving only his silver-blue eyes showing, and the look of fear and loathing in them actually sold the charade. No one would look at him and doubt, at all, that Tony had trained a feral wyr to heel.

Tony stroked Bucky’s hair back tenderly and bent to drop a kiss on his forehead. “There’s still time to back out, to try something else.”

Bucky leaned into the kiss with a muffled sound from behind the mask, then shook his head. “This--” his eyes stopped looking quite so horrified when he noticed that he could still talk freely, even if it was a bit muted “--this is the best plan. Fastest. Don’t need any more lives lost.”

Tony nodded. “All right, then.” He straightened and caught up his gloves with one hand and the leash with the other. “Let’s go kill some snakes.”

Bucky fell in behind Tony, slightly to the left, so he stayed constantly in Tony’s peripheral vision. A soothing presence at Tony’s back, a hand that sometimes strayed to the small of Tony’s back in a quick brush of comfort -- either seeking or giving, Tony wasn’t quite sure. Despite being quite a bit taller than Tony, Bucky maintained a perfect stride, matching Tony’s pace and keeping the leash from tugging taut.

_Like a well-trained pet_ , Tony thought, and shivered a little. Then he locked it all away, drawing out his most arrogant persona: He was _Tony Stark_ , feared creature of the night, genius, and _wyr-tamer_. What had he to worry about?

It was with that attitude drawn around him like a cloak that he strode toward the entrance of Club Tyranny, not even glancing at the wannabe blood dolls who lurked outside the club.

The bouncer was good -- he didn’t look shocked to see someone like Tony at the club, but he also didn’t pretend that he didn’t know who Tony was at a single glance. He moved the red velvet line tape aside. “Good to see you, Mr. Stark,” he said, and waved them both in. There was just enough of a queue past the door that Tony had to wait for it to clear in order to make an entrance, stepping into the club and pausing to let everyone gawk and stare and admire.

The music and heat and smell of the club was like a blanket; a hot, sticky, sweaty mass of noise and underneath, the savage bass that thudded in Tony’s chest like his long-since stopped heartbeat.

Bucky took a step closer, his masked face dipping toward Tony’s throat as if he was seeking comfort in the aura of Tony’s personal smell. Whatever he was doing, it looked subservient, and Tony watched as the mood in the club shifted several degrees to the political. Cell phones were raised, pictures were taken. Social media went wild with speculation, both mundane and supernatural.

He loftily ignored all of it, stepping through the crowds that parted for him like water. He made his way to the back of the club, letting everyone get a good look at them, letting the whispers begin. He stopped in front of a lush, deep booth and tipped his head slightly at its current occupant, the barest touch of quizzical confusion: _why is this mortal in my seat?_

There was a scramble as lesser beings moved out of his way, one of them stopping, hand raised as if to touch Tony’s shoulder or try to get his attention, and suddenly Bucky was there. Huge and bristling with indignation, snarls coming out from behind the muzzle, eyes glowing a menacing red. The wannabe blood doll fled, tugged away by her friends and peers, leaving Tony with a wide swath of open space in which to hold court.

Tony didn’t acknowledge Bucky’s intervention verbally, but he patted Bucky’s shoulder as he slid into the booth and turned to watch the dancers writhe together with the distinct air that they were an entertainment purely for his own satisfaction. It shouldn’t take long for word to filter back to Hydra ears, not if they were as entrenched already as Tony suspected.

Bucky was, as far as Tony could tell, on high alert. Every cell in his body seethed aggression, like he was just waiting for something to happen. _Give me an excuse,_ his body language seemed to say, _and see what fucking happens._ And yet, after he’d glared at each individual in the club, separately and as a collective whole, he folded his knees under him and went down, head just level with Tony’s knee. It was the most beautiful thing Tony had ever seen; he went from full-on malevolent to near worshipful submission in an instant.

What would it be like, he wondered, to have this willingly, because Bucky _wanted_ it and not just as a show, honey for the trap? The wyr was so strong, so powerful, that submission would be a gift beyond price. Tony suppressed another shiver and threaded his fingers into Bucky’s hair possessively, showing every eye on them who Bucky belonged to. And if it gave Bucky some comfort as well, then so much the better.

He hoped Hydra would make their move soon, though.


	6. Chapter 6

The muzzle was just for show, Bucky reminded himself.

Which meant he couldn’t react overtly when the blood doll came up and presented himself, beautiful and lush and reeking of Pierce’s cologne. If it were a true muzzle, Bucky wouldn’t have been able to smell him, wouldn’t know who it was or where he’d come from. Bucky did put a hand on Tony’s ankle and squeeze lightly as the doll arrived.

“My lord,” the man said, bowing deep enough to brush his hair against the floor -- woe to his hair stylist. “I am sent as a gift to one befitting your station, should you care to partake, and then hear what it is my master wishes to say.”

Hail fucking Hydra, Bucky thought, not managing, quite, to stifle the growl that rose in his throat. Behind the mask, under the throb of music, it probably wasn’t quite as fierce as Bucky would have preferred.

_How dare this little lickstick come up and offer his throat to Tony?_

Tony took his time looking the man over, a fussy eater trying to decide if a disappointing steak was worth the effort of cutting into it. “Who do you belong to?” he wondered, sounding bored, as if he didn’t particularly care about the answer.

“I serve a great many masters,” the man said, “all with the same goal. When one head is removed, two more will take its place. Names are… unimportant.”

Tony sniffed, supercilious. “Of course he didn’t tell you his name. So unimaginative. Run along and tell your master that I’ll listen to what he has to say. I decline to drink. I’m not thirsty, just yet.” He petted Bucky’s hair again, suggestively.

“Yes, my lord,” the man said, bowing again.

_Sniveling little juicebox_ , Bucky thought, snarling again. He waited until the man was out of hearing, even if he had enhanced senses. “Pierce. He’s a senator. Pretends to be mortal, vanilla human.”

“But instead?” Tony wondered, his lips barely moving.

“He’s dead,” Bucky said, “but immortal. Can’t be killed, he just comes back, and comes back. Keeps his soul locked in a jar, the jar in a secret place. Break the jar, break the man.” A dead thing, unnatural and evil. He glanced at Tony; he’d thought the same thing about vampires, once. But Tony’s actions had spoken louder than his bloodlines. Maybe, perhaps, possibly, a lich could be a decent being, worth befriending. Bucky wasn’t sure; he didn’t know the rituals and rites that allowed a man to separate himself from his soul.

It didn’t sound like something that would involve kittens and rainbows, though.

“Shit,” Tony murmured. “One of _those_. Okay. Well. Let’s find out what we can, then.” His hand tightened in Bucky’s hair briefly. “There he is.”

Bucky didn’t know how he knew those things, how he knew anything. His memory was blank, sometimes, before Tony. Like nothing had ever happened. Like he’d just been born _knowing_ some things.

Pierce… was blond. Attractive. Tall. He smiled, welcoming and easy. Like he wasn’t the slightest bit afraid. Which was weird, because fear was only natural, when faced with an angry vampire and a wyr barely on the leash.

There was no smell of fear. Just smug satisfaction, like everything was unfolding according to Pierce’s plan.

There was no time to back up, make a new plan.

Bucky snarled behind his mask.

Tony petted his hair idly. “Senator,” he greeted Pierce calmly. “I admit I’m surprised to see you in a place like this, with all the party animals.” He grinned, just enough to show off a hint of fang, still carding his fingers through Bucky’s hair. “Do join me.” He tipped his head a little to catch the eye of a server, and waved indolently.

“I see you’ve made a new friend,” Pierce said, directing his gaze at Bucky, those blue eyes were… hauntingly familiar. Bucky had an urge to roll onto his back, exposing his throat and belly. A wolfish urge. He smothered it. He didn’t answer Pierce; Pierce wouldn’t have expected him to do so, anyway.

Pierce acknowledged Tony with a quick nod, flipping his coat tails out of the way to sit across, like they were getting ready to play a high stakes game of poker. “Stark.”

“I don’t know that you’d call him a _friend_ , really,” Tony hummed, twirling his fingers through Bucky’s hair. “But he does amuse.” He squeezed the back of Bucky’s neck briefly, comforting, and then looked up at Pierce. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company, Senator?”

Bucky was breathing, just breathing. In and out. Pierce smelled familiar. He smelled… almost _comforting_ , but it was an ersatz comfort, false and hollow. He smelled of rot and things long dead. He smelled of thick cologne, a scent that clung to him all the time, that clung to people he touched, like some sort of invisible influence. The smell of Bucky’s own fur.

“Honestly?” Piece seemed amused. “I came to offer you a truce. A chance, one might say. A slender hope. You’re in more danger than you can possibly know. But it would be a shame to lose you. You’ve been a power on this world for so long. Maybe it’s time to think about retirement. A comfortable place, fewer mortals. Enough to feed from, not enough to matter, in the grand scheme of things.”  

Bucky remained utterly, utterly still. Part of him wanted to attack, wanted to shift, and claw, and bite while there was still time, before the trap settled around them both. He didn’t know what it was, he didn’t know how they would escape. His eyes moved from spot to spot. Pierce’s cologne was like a green stain; he could see where Pierce had touched people, rotten smudges against their skin. There, at the door, two bouncers, and the waitress. Another by the VIP lounge gates. A fifth near the bathrooms.

They were surrounded, and he didn’t even know how to warn Tony without giving it all away. Because once Pierce knew the game was up, they were dead.

Well, Bucky was dead.

Tony was… more dead.

“That’s not much of a truce,” Tony said. “What happens when you decide you need my new home, as well?” He shook his head. “Not to mention all the years of work I’ve put into New York. I’m not inclined to accept your truce under such conditions, Senator. What real incentive do you have to offer me?”

“Oh, we don’t,” Pierce said. “It’s merely a matter of courtesy. Die now, or die later. It’s all the same to us, you know. Your death, well, it doesn’t sate at all. There’s nothing of substance to it.” He lowered his hand, letting long, white fingers dangle idly. Bucky couldn’t help but watch them, like it meant something to him. Like--

_\--cold fingers in his fur, someone lightly tugging his ears. Pierce was proud of him. Fond, almost. He was a tool, a tool of Hydra. Hydra, that fed on death and pain and agony and grief. And Bucky brought those things--_

Bucky whined, leaned harder against Tony’s knee.

Tony’s hand was in his fur -- no, _hair_ \-- again, soothing and cool. “Well, there we’re in agreement. Perhaps I should offer _you_ the opportunity to move on, peaceably. You’ve already made the mistake of hurting my people. I’m not accustomed to being forgiving.”

“Peace… isn’t in our nature,” Pierce said. “Control is. Dominion… is.” He snapped his fingers. “Come, dog. Show him who your master is.”

Bucky flinched, whined. He couldn’t raise his gaze from Pierce’s hand, the long fingers, the smooth, ageless wrist. He… knew where he belonged and it wasn’t at Tony’s side.

_But… but I know him._

It took every bit of will that Bucky possessed just to stay where he was. To raise his chin, to shift his eyes. Aching and searching for strength. _Tony!_

He could feel his balance shifting, just that one slight movement that would send him, crawling on his belly, to Pierce’s side. On Pierce’s word.

Cool fingers scritched along his scalp. “Ah. Bucky, sweetheart, perhaps we should so the senator a taste of real power.”

“Do you think you’ve wooed him to your side, _leech_?” Pierce sneered, and Bucky remembered those same words, that same slur, coming out of his own mouth and where had he learned it from? “Do you think you know power? He knows, deep inside, he knows, the only way he’ll ever be whole again.”

“I think,” Tony said, “that I’ve freed him to choose his own side.”

Bucky snarled again, wobbled. He did know, didn’t he? Hadn’t Tony showed him the way, a way without murder, a way without becoming an eater of death, a feeder on the weak and helpless. Tony fed on blood, it was true, but he didn’t have to kill.

Pierce, and his ilk, they fed on death. Only death would satisfy them.

He could feel the tug of Pierce’s power, the way it wove in and down and under Bucky’s skin. The way it wrapped tendrils around his heart, moving in his veins. Tearing at his bones. The way it slithered and oozed and possessed.

“You know, don’t you, _dog_? Go on, take his blood. Take what is rightfully yours,” Pierce taunted him.

Tony scoffed. “What is rightfully his is only what you tried to take away. I may be a _leech_ , but at least I still have a _soul_.” He petted Bucky’s hair again. “Go on, then, and take my blood, if you wish.”

Bucky bit into the capsule of Tony’s blood inside the muzzle, felt the power flowing through him, burning away the darkness. He ripped the muzzle aside. “Tony, there’s more of them! Five, six, at least!” He managed that much before the change seared through his body, tearing and reshaping his muscles and sinew. He was howling even before his paws touched the ground, and when he was full wolf, burly shouldered and filled with killing rage, he howled, calling, calling his kin, if there were any left. _Come, come and hunt._

Pierce raised a hand, almost negligently, and if Bucky hadn’t known his ex-master so long, he might not have noticed how those fingers trembled.

And then it didn’t matter, because he lunged for the lich’s throat, aching to kill that thing which was no longer a man, nor a magician, but a monster.

The club turned into a riot; Bucky didn’t even know what the mortals saw, but they screamed and ran for the exits, and the monsters among them plowed through them like snowdrifts.

His teeth closed over the death thing’s throat, and he tasted decaying flesh, rotten and overly soft.

Pierce coughed, spluttered. Then spoke, in the instant just before Bucky could set his muzzle and tear. “ _Longing_.”

Bucky whined, let his mouth fall open. What-- what the hell was happening? “ _Rusted_.”

Behind him, Tony was engaged, the ghouls charging at him with weapons that they’d concealed under their clubbing clothes; all the sorts of things that weakened vampires. Crosses and mirrored blades. Bucky needed to help him, he should help--

“ _Furnace_.”

He sat back on his haunches, as if waiting for a treat. What was he, fucking Lassie?

“What the hell,” Tony said. It sounded urgent, but also a long way away, like the words were coming to Bucky’s ear through a tunnel. “Bucky, snap out of it!” It ended on a grunt as he tossed one of the bouncers into a wall.

“ _Daybreak_.”

He was a hunter. Top tier predator. The very best nature had to offer the world. A killing machine, designed for one purpose. He--

Bucky yipped, as if someone had stepped on his tail, whirled around in a circle, biting at the silvery leg. It burned, it _burned_. Something was-- making it hurt. He hurt, he was in agony, he howled and snarled and--

More words, human words, he didn’t know them, didn’t recognize them. Only one thing would cure that burning agony, only one way…

He turned, caught sight of the vampire, that cooling blood in dead veins, that perfect cure, that--

_But I know him!_

The vampire was struggling with the master’s other servants. Distracted. Even with all the speed it could summon, it would not be able to move fast enough to escape the wolf’s jaws.

“You unbelievable bastard,” the vampire snapped. “What did you do to him?”

The words were finished. The wolf waited for the order. Any order.

The wolf’s master smiled. A thin, pitiful thing, with no fangs to back it, no strength, no heartbeat. “The same thing Hydra will do to _everything_. Made him compliant. You will comply. Or die. It’s that simple.” The wolf’s master gestured. “And you, Stark, you have outlived your usefulness. Soldier?”

The wolf’s ears perked up.

“Kill him.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild warning for genre-appropriate violence, here...

The ghouls dealt with, Tony whirled back to face Pierce, only to find Bucky standing between them, muzzle wrinkling as his lips pulled back into a silent snarl. Tony backed away, and Bucky followed, a deep growl rumbling out of his throat.

“Honey, no,” Tony whispered. “Bucky. This isn’t you, sweetheart. It’s _them_.” He backed up a little further, but ran into a table and a wall, and there was nowhere else to go. “You don’t want this.”

Bucky twitched, fur shivering like he was being bitten by tiny insects. He whined, made a sharp bark. Bit at his shoulder again, leaving bleeding traces on snowy white fur. He lunged at Tony, teeth snapping toward Tony’s face, and then stumbled. Torn by conflicting desires, the wolf smashed into the table, turning it to kindling and twisted metal. He rolled onto the floor before Pierce lashed out with a kick, striking the wolf in his ribs.

Bucky yipped in pain.

The leg, the quicksilver leg. And the only thing that muted that pain was-- Tony tore at his wrist with his fangs, leaving a jagged and ungraceful line. “Come on, sweetheart,” he coaxed. “Come on, it will help, you can have it.” He held out his arm for Bucky to scent.

Bucky crawled forward, dragging himself on his belly across the bar. His nostrils flared. His eyes were huge, glowing. He whined, crept a little further toward Tony, tongue licking at that enormous muzzle. There was feral intelligence in his lupine face, a flicker of his tail as it wagged, the way his ears perked that indicated canine affection.

His tongue was warm as it lashed over Tony’s arm, swiping the blood away, gentle as a washcloth.

“That’s it, honey, that’s good,” Tony praised. He carefully petted Bucky’s head with his other hand, feeling the soft fur of Bucky’s ears. Then he looked up at Pierce, still crouched amidst the pieces of the broken table. “You lose.”

“It hardly matters,” Pierce said, and he rose up, faster than any man should have been able, a jaggedly sharp wooden bit of the table strut in one hand. “Your time is _over_.”

Oh, fuck, _fuck_ \-- Tony scrambled sideways, trying to give himself room to maneuver. “You’re _insane!_ ” he yelled. “Just give up, already!” He snatched up a chair and flung it in Pierce’s direction.

Pierce was screaming something about Hydra’s power, its raw, unchecked… something -- Tony wasn’t really listening to recruiting speeches -- and he leapt, stake out in front of him. Tony was going to cease existing, gasping out his last moments on the end of some piece of plywood trash, and that was just _unacceptable--_ He was knocked to the floor by an enormous mound of white fur and muscle.

Bucky howled in pain as the stake jammed into tender skin near the back of his neck.

Pierce stumbled over the wolf’s body, graceless with sudden surprise.

Tony had not survived for as long as he had by hesitating when an opportunity presented itself. As Pierce stumbled and fell, Tony lunged forward, his fingers curving into claws. His nails dug into the soft skin of Pierce’s throat. Tony made a fist and _yanked_.

There was a gush of-- well, it wasn’t _blood_ , that was for certain. Black and foul and rotten, the fluid that dripped out of Pierce’s body was vile. The thing staggered back, hands reaching up for the hole in its throat, like it was trying to keep life in its body.

Bucky, who was sprawled on the floor, rolled over, knocking the creature off its feet. It hit the ground and splattered, skin breaking apart and spreading the toxic goo in a putrid puddle. Bucky yipped and scrambled away from the thing that had once been Pierce, hiding behind Tony’s legs.

Tony stared at the slightly smoldering puddle for a long moment, half-convinced that it would re-form and stand up again. But it didn’t. Finally, he tore his gaze away to focus on Bucky instead. “Damn, you’re hurt.” He touched around the edges of the wound the splintered table leg had left. “You saved me, though. Thank you.”

Bucky pushed his head under Tony’s hand, like a big kitten.

Tony scratched at Bucky’s ears fondly. “As much as you like. What do you think we should do about... that?” He waved at the Pierce-puddle.

Bucky sniffed at what was left of the Pierce thing, muzzle rippling back, showing off his teeth. He growled at it, barking a few times. He looked back at Tony, nosed at the puddle. Sneezed, then trotted toward the door, for all the world looking like a hunting dog that had been given a scent to track.

Tony cocked his head, studying Bucky’s impatient flicking of one ear. “Really? ...Okay. Let’s see what you can find, then.” He pushed open the door and followed Bucky out into the night, his skirt swishing around his calves.

***

Bucky still felt a little woozy, like he’d bled too much, or not eaten enough.

But he could smell the creature, the consciousness, for lack of a better word, drifting in a current, moving back toward its soul. The call of migration, like some sort of evil butterfly headed to a far away breeding ground.

It floated, almost, a heavy, bobbling balloon of nastiness, leaving a smell behind that Bucky could _taste_ , leaving unutterable bitterness against his tongue.

He didn’t want to follow it, he wanted to go someplace safe and warm and bury his nose in sweet smelling blankets, wanted to hide from that evil scent and what was behind it, the malice and madness of it.

There wasn’t a choice; if they fled, they would leave the lich to fight another night, and they might not be so lucky a second time.

Bucky paused, looked back for Tony, pawing at the pavement and whining impatiently.

“I’m coming,” Tony said, but he took longer strides. “It would really be convenient if the whole ‘turn into bats’ thing were true. Also, it would be nice if you could tell me where we’re going.”

Bucky sneezed. It wasn’t like he _knew_. He was just following the scent, he wasn’t a bloody psychic. Hopefully it wouldn’t take too long to get there. He didn’t have a watch, either. Presumably Tony would know when the sun was coming up and he was at risk. The last thing they needed was to be trapped for twelve plus hours while the sun was overhead.

The foul-scented cloud was probably weak against the sun as well; sunlight had a tendency to purify.

Tony was quick, faster than a human, but not nearly as fast as a wolf. He snarled at the idea, it should have been beneath his dignity, but they were in a hurry. And Tony was short, at least. Light. Bucky sighed, trotted back and got behind Tony, nudging at his thigh.

“What? I’m moving as fast as I--” Tony stopped altogether and turned to look at him. “No. Really? In _this_ form?” He looked around, then sighed. “Well, I guess you’re the size of a small horse, anyway.” He dug his hands into Bucky’s ruff and rolled up onto Bucky’s back, laying flat like a jockey. “We look ridiculous, I hope you know that.”

Bucky was aware. But it wasn’t the worst thing he’d ever done, and Tony barely seemed to weigh anything. He tucked his snout down, stretched his legs. His claws and toes gripped at the ground, and then he was off, bounding and leaping, following the scent as quick as thought.

The air rushed around them, and he could feel Tony thrilling to the excitement of the chase, the vampire’s lean body quivering as he clung to Bucky’s fur.

Bucky raced to beat the sun, raced to find their enemy, the enemy of every creature, human and monster.

The scent…

… led to a damn sewer.

Because of course it did. Where would all foul and evil things hide? Beneath the ground, away from the sun, in the stink and rot and putrid waters.

It was stronger, the opening was saturated with the creature’s coming and goings.

So _close_. Bucky snarled.

“This far and no farther,” Tony muttered. “Can you not follow it past this point, or do you just not want to?”

Bucky lowered himself to the ground, burying his nose under his paws. Could Tony not smell it, how bad it stank? It burned inside his nose like bleach, like poison. He whined. He did not want to go in there, he really did not.

It was everything he was afraid of. It was death and ice and a sinister whisper, telling him that everything would be all right, if he just _complied_.

“Yeah, I get it,” Tony said. He slid off Bucky’s back and examined the sewer opening. “But I think we have to press on while we have an advantage.”

The stink of it was going to cling to him like skunk spray. Bucky took a few tentative steps into the hole. The tunnel was not quite big enough for a wolf to walk upright. He was going to have to slink through the mud and the muck and the shit. Not that it was going to be any better for Tony, having to walk hunched over.

Each paw sunk into a thick layer of goop, and each step he pulled his paw up and tried to shake it off, instinctively. Slow going. He didn’t dare whine inside the tunnel, either. The lich probably knew they were after him, but there was no sense in letting Pierce hear them, either.

Bucky’s spine ached in moments, his thighs burning with the effort of crouching and moving at the same time. He wasn’t a _cat_ , for fuck’s sake.

If didn’t take long at all before they were beyond the reach of the meager light. Bucky could see well enough in the dark, but this was blackness beyond anything he’d ever experienced. He could smell (too much!) and he could hear the faintest sounds of their moving, the way the foul mud dripped off their feet, the way it echoed in the empty space. He could… sense, more than see, their path.

_I wish vampires could turn into bats, too,_ he thought, really loud. In case Tony could hear him, somehow.

“Do you think he can fly?” Tony whispered. “I can’t imagine being willing to do this multiple times a day.” A hand brushed against Bucky’s back, tentatively at first and then curling deeper into the fur. “This is horrific. I can only imagine how much worse it is for-- is that a light, up ahead?”

Bucky couldn’t imagine being willing to do it more than once in a lifetime, but then, he wasn’t-- yes, yes, there was some light, and Bucky was so tired of the stink and the darkness and the fear that he pushed forward a little faster.

It almost cost him…

There was a ripple in the air, just before they would have passed out of the tunnel and into a wide, open, sweet-smelling space. Like a spider’s web, or mist made solid. He almost didn’t see it, but Tony pressed a cautioning hand against Bucky’s shoulder, and Bucky leaned into the touch, aching for it, and--

Stopped, right before he walked straight into the trap.

Tony slogged another step closer, peering at the faint smudge in the air from only inches away. “I’m not sure what it does,” he admitted, barely louder than a breath. “Warning ward? Death spell? Keeps the smell out? Whatever it is, he’ll almost certainly know if we breach it.”

Bucky didn’t know, either.

But he did know -- suddenly, he knew, he… _remembered_.

He’d been here before. More than once in a lifetime. _Dozens_ of times. After missions, when Pierce would send him out to kill and maim and terrorize. When nothing mattered except the taste of blood and Pierce’s cold hand on his head. When he complied. When he obeyed. When he was nothing but a tool and a watchdog, a beast. A _monster_.

Bucky took a step back, moving awkwardly through the mud. Every time, before. He’d come just as the blood was running out, as his nerves itched and the silver burned and--

He pushed the quicksilver paw forward, through the veil, and pierced it.

The pain got worse, until he couldn’t bear the way his bones were splintering under it, until he could scream with it, and then--

He was a man again, hands and knees in the stench of it, but the veil was down.

And no one had been alerted.

The smell wasn’t much better without a wolf’s sensitive nose, honestly. Bucky hitched in a breath and then puked. It didn’t matter, anyway. He got up, wiping his mouth with his shoulder, mostly still untainted by dirt and slime.

“ _Fuuuuck_ , this is disgusting,” Bucky muttered.

“No argument here. What did you do to it?” Tony reached out and brushed his fingers through the space where the veil had been.

“Password,” Bucky muttered. “Pierce needed his guard dog to be able to come and go without getting off his undead ass to open the door.”

“Heh, all right.” Tony gestured extravagantly at the waiting space. “After you.”

“Age before beauty,” Bucky snorted, stepping aside as if to let Tony pass.

Tony huffed in amusement. “Luckily, I have both.” He stepped into the room, sweeping its corners quickly and then going back over it more slowly, eyes ticking from point to point. “No convenient boxes labeled _Soul Jar_ ,” he reported.

Bucky shook himself all over. The scent wasn’t quite so obvious, as if everything beyond the veil was purified, somehow. But… he looked around. “ _Sitwell_. Can you… hear him? He’s a living man. Don’t vampires do something where they can hear heartbeats? He’s Pierce’s… majordomo, I guess the word would be. He never leaves.”

Maybe they could threaten the information out of the little weasel. If they could find him. The rooms beyond the veil were almost as vast as a castle, and Bucky’d never seen more than the first few rooms.

“Never?” Tony closed his eyes and went still, far more still than a living creature was capable of being. After several long moments, he turned his head and resumed his statue impersonation. Just as Bucky began to consider prodding him out of it, he opened his eyes again and pointed. “That way. He sounds... odd.”

“I dunno,” Bucky admitted. “Sitwell’s always been odd. Hopefully, he’s as attached to his life as most humans. He might be willing to help in order to avoid being torn to little pieces.” He made his best guess in the tangle of hallways and doors beyond the foyer room. Fuck, he hoped Sitwell would help them, otherwise they could spend the rest of their unnatural lives looking for the damn phylactery.

Tony stopped to do his blood dowsing trick a few more times, and then Bucky could smell him. Musty, heavily cologned human scent.

Subtlety seemed pointless. Bucky reared back and punched the door to splinters in a single blow from that quicksilver arm.

Tony moved fast, faster than Bucky had ever seen him move before, shooting through the door and into the room before the shards of door even fell. By the time Bucky looked, Tony had caught Sitwell’s collar in his hands and was twisting it, pressing the fabric tight against Sitwell’s neck and throat. Tony smiled, showing off his fangs. “Let’s talk, Sitwell.”

“Staaark,” Sitwell drawled, as if completely unsurprised. “This doesn’t seem like you. Rash, rushing in, breaking things. I’m shocked.” He wasn’t entirely composed, his dark eyes darting from Tony’s face to Bucky to the smashed door.

“Pierce ain’t here to help you, neither,” Bucky said. “We killed him.”

“You can’t kill Alexander Pierce,” Sitwell said. “No one can.”

“Oh, don’t you worry your little head about Pierce,” Tony purred. “You should be far more worried about what we’re going to do to _you_.” He stroked the side of Sitwell’s throat with a pleased hum. “Don’t you look just _delicious_.”

“I don’t think you really want to do that,” Sitwell said.

Bucky eyed Tony for a long moment, then, “You know, I kinda think he _really_ does. He burned through a lot of blood tonight. Needs to top off. You know how it goes.”

Tony licked his finger and made an X on Sitwell’s neck. “Unless, of course, you want to tell us where Pierce’s soul is hiding.”

“I couldn’t tell you, even if I wanted to,” Sitwell said, with the unspoken _and I don’t want to_ hanging in the air. “Let go of me.” He shoved at Tony with a strength that Bucky wouldn’t have expected out of a scrawny little servant.

It wasn’t quite up to prying him free from the grip of a determined vampire, though. Tony held fast, and before Sitwell could gather himself for another attempt, sank his fangs into Sitwell’s throat.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another genre-appropriate violence warning...

Sitwell shrieked as Tony’s fangs pierced his throat, hands up to try to ward off the vampire. Tony’s mouth had barely fastened on when he staggered back, coughing and choking.

“Tony--” Bucky reached for the vampire, steadied him. Tony kept coughing, like a human who’d taken a lungful of toxic smoke. Heaving, struggling.

“Well, I must admit, I didn’t think he’d be that stupid,” Sitwell said in a voice utterly unlike the one he’d been speaking with before.

“What did you do--”

Sitwell backed up several steps, hands out. “Me? _I_ didn’t do anything.” He pointed at the still-bleeding marks on his throat. That never happened, vampire wounds were self-healing, self-sealing. “He’s the one who bit me.”

“Tony?” Bucky ignored the little weasel -- there wasn’t anywhere Sitwell could go without stepping past an angry wyr anyway -- and tipped Tony’s chin up to look at him. “Tony? Are you--”

Tony’s eyes were wide, the pupils huge, as if he were staring into a pitch dark room, but they didn’t focus on Bucky’s face. They darted around, seeing something far beyond this room -- or something deep within. He shuddered under Bucky’s hand, twitched, his brow furrowing and his lip curling back to reveal his fangs, long and deadly and still stained with Sitwell’s blood. But he didn’t respond, didn’t seem to notice Bucky at all.

“What did you do to him?”

Bucky drew Tony a step forward, and Tony responded to that tiny movement. Not sure what he was seeing, Bucky lifted Tony’s hand up, about chest high and let go. The vampire’s hand, long-fingered and pale skin, just hovered there until Bucky pushed it back down to his side. It was utterly, utterly creepy. Tony responded like a doll, not a _person_.

“I’m telling you,” Sitwell said, backing all the way up until his shoulders hit the wall -- the little man jumped forward again in shock as if something had snuck up behind him. “I didn’t do it.”

“But you know what happened to him,” Bucky suggested, keeping hold of his temper with both hands. “You know what’s wrong with him.” He walked Tony over to one of the chairs until his legs touched it. A gentle push on the top of his head and Tony sat down, barely perched on the edge of the seat, but stable. Bucky hoped.

“He bit me,” Sitwell insisted. “It’s his own fault.”

Bucky dropped into a crouch in front of Tony, trying to see if there was any awareness in that hollow stare. “I’m here, honey,” he said. “I’m here. Tony… Tony can you hear me? At all?”

For an instant, it seemed Tony heard him, began turning toward him, and then Tony’s gaze went blank and distant again.

His lips moved, just a little, not enough for Bucky to read the meaning of it. His whole body shook with some inner struggle, and a soft sound escaped his throat, the merest soft whine, like air being slowly released from a balloon, three rooms away.

“Don’t you even move, you little fuck,” Bucky snarled, watching Sitwell trying to skirt past him, back to the wall. “What did you do?” Tony’s skin, normally room temperature, or a little cooler, was burning up. Like a human with a fever.

Infinitely gentle, Bucky placed that too-warm hand on Tony’s knee and moved him back a little in the chair so he wouldn’t fall.

“Killing me won’t get you anywhere,” Sitwell protested as Bucky took a menacing step toward him.

“Ripping your arms off might,” Bucky suggested, smiling, too wide and showing too many teeth to be friendly. “Or, I don’t even have to start with arms. You don’t _really_ need ten fingers, do you?”

Sitwell flinched, hiding his hands behind his back. Like that was going to stop anything.

“I don’t… I don’t know. Not. Exactly.”

“But you have suspicions,” Bucky said. Took another step closer. He’d need another infusion of Tony’s blood to go full wyr, and that wasn’t happening, not while Tony was like this. It was going to suck to have to bite this little jerk’s fingers off while he was still in his human form.

But he could do it. He could go completely feral, rip into this piece of filth and feel no remorse for it.

“Pierce,” Sitwell said. “He… look--” Sitwell fumbled with his button down shirt, practically yanking it off like he was doing a Superman transformation to show off a--

“What the _hell_ is that?”

In the center of Sitwell’s chest, where his breastbone had once been, was a blue jewel about the size of Bucky’s fist.

The _phylactery_.

“It was you?” Bucky found himself gripping Sitwell’s shoulders, his fingernails biting into the skin.

“My life gives him life,” Sitwell said.

“That’s disgusting,” Bucky said. “Where is he now?”

Sitwell didn’t answer, he just looked over at Tony meaningfully. _I think you already know._

Bucky could feel Sitwell’s heart beating, could smell his fear, but could also see the smug surety of the man. Bucky wouldn’t kill him. Not without better answers. Not without a way to undo what had been done. Sitwell was safe. The man knew it.

Smug bastard.

Across the room, Tony screamed, a sound of anguish, fear, loss. Agony.

And Bucky forget that Sitwell was safe.

The man’s head came off his shoulders with sickening ease, the blood splashed across the room, soaked the wall, drenched Bucky in its warm stickiness.

A moment later, Bucky was back at Tony’s side, hands trying to steady the vampire. “Tony! Tony! Come on, honey, snap out of it-- You… you can’t let him win. Not _now_. Not when I--”

***

Sitwell’s blood was hot and sweet, thick on Tony’s tongue as he swallowed, feeling the rush of life and warmth and strength. And then it was thick, thicker than blood should be, like syrup in his mouth. Bitter-tasting. _Wrong_.

Tony didn’t swallow any more, but it... _pulsed_ , undulated, forced its way down Tony’s throat anyway. Tony gagged, staggered back, clutching at his throat and coughing, trying to force that vile ichor back out.

It squirmed and wriggled and slithered down Tony’s throat and into his body. Tony felt it inside him, just behind his breastbone, snuggled up against the shriveled remnant of his heart, so cold it felt hot.

_What was it?_ Some kind of protective spell that Pierce had placed on his faithful servant? A curse, a disease? Darkness clouded his vision and Tony coughed again, desperately, trying to bring it back up. _Get out!_

_Did you really think you could win?_ There was a smugness to it, a darkness inside him, viscous as oil, sticky like molasses. _I didn’t think you’d actually take me in. This body, so useful, so strong. A nice, new home. Perhaps this should have been my goal from the beginning._

_Pierce._ Tony froze, searching the inky darkness for the lich. _How did you-- Sitwell was the phylactery? A living man? But you’d have to have hollowed out his own soul to-- that’s_ vile _._

_What is he, but one of billions? They’re like roaches. Useful, but worthless._ Pierce’s disembodied laughter shivered through him like an ill wind. _Don’t tell me you’re fond of them? Your food, your very sustenance. Do you feel guilt for the lives you’ve taken? What a waste of sentiment._

_I was one of them once,_ Tony pointed out. _As were you. Upon whom should I spend my sentiment, if not mortals?_

Pierce used his will to lift Tony’s chin, or maybe it was Bucky’s hand on him, Tony couldn’t tell. He was lost inside his own body, unable to reach out, unable to see or feel. “Tony? Tony are you--”

_Look at that,_ Pierce chuckled _. He cares about you. Do you think he knows I’m in here? Will he kill you, I wonder, to rid the world of me? Or will he spare us both, in hopes of_ saving you _?_

_Kill me,_ Tony tried to tell Bucky, but his body was not responding to his attempts to move. _Kill Pierce!_ He’d had time, and more than enough time. So many years...

Why wasn’t Pierce doing _more_? Taunting Tony was undoubtedly enjoyable, but surely Pierce would want to get away from the angry wyr before Bucky realized what had happened. Or try to fool Bucky into thinking he _was_ Tony. Why wasn’t he-- _You’re trapped, too,_ Tony realized. _I’m too strong for you to control_.

_I’ll wear you down,_ Pierce snarled. _The wyr loves you, he’ll protect your body, never realizing he’s defending me as well. You’ll never defeat me. Never cast me out. Eventually… and I have nothing but time… we’ll become one, and you’ll never understand how it happened. You’re weak. Sentimental. You can do nothing but lose._

_You think_ you _have nothing but time? I am the very definition of the patient predator_ , Tony retorted. _I’ve slept for decades, celebrated centuries, wandered this earth for millennia. Waiting you out will be trivial._

Tony’s body moved again, against his will, as if there were nothing he could do to stop it. He couldn’t even feel the connections to his limbs. _And in the meanwhile,_ Pierce spat back, _whenever you’re not exerting all your will, I’ll take this body. I’ll use it. He may not even realize I’m in control. Your faithful hound, is there anything he wouldn’t do for you? Help me, all unwilling, and brew a poison to drive you out, thinking he’s getting rid of me._

_I wonder if it’ll be fun, to toy with him for a while. Let him think I’m you… find out just how deep that bond goes. Maybe I’ll even let you live long enough to watch it. Watch me destroy him._

Tony growled, or tried to. _You think he won’t recognize you, trying to enslave him yet again? You’ll be lucky if he drops us out a window at noon; we’ll be ash before we hit the pavement. He’ll never let you own him again._

The darkness cleared like a swirl of fog. “I’m here, Tony.” Bucky was staring into Tony’s eyes. Tony could see every microexpression on the wyr’s face, the concern in his eyes, the fury in his jaw as he struggled to understand what was happening. “I’m here, honey. Can you… can you even hear me?”

_I’m here!_ Tony tried to say, and then the darkness closed over his vision again, carrying him away. _No, come back!_

_I’m here, I’m here. Help!_ Pierce’s voice was mocking him, sing-song and high-pitched, a child’s mocking taunt. Like everything was some ridiculous game for the lich. _You really are the perfect host. Nearly indestructible. I should have thought of this years ago. Well, no point in not taking advantage now. Let’s see…_

There was a horrible sense of violation as Pierce rummaged through Tony’s memories, viewing them with a scoff of derision, or studying them with interest. _Maybe we can pretend to be you. For a while. Let you watch while we destroy everything that ever mattered to you._

Pierce watched with glee as Yinsen died in Tony’s arms.

_That,_ Tony said tightly, _is not for you._ He reached into the darkness, grasping, trying to find Pierce there, to touch, to _hurt_.

There it was, like a whisper of smoke. Pierce, the lich, in Tony’s mind. Like a demented gremlin, the lich ransacked Tony’s memories, throwing them around like garbage, precious as they were. The first moment the neonate vampire had looked up at his creator with eyes that would never again be mortal -- discarded like trash. Everything hurt, it hurt like Pierce was pulling out tiny bits of Tony’s soul.

Finally, finally, there-- Tony could just feel him, could reach out and grasp that wisp of evil. Grabbed it with both mental hands.

Pierce shrieked in shock. _Let go!_

“Tony! Tony! Come on, honey, snap out of it-- You… you can’t let him win. Not now. Not when I--” Bucky was there again, and his hands were wet with fresh blood, his expression desperate and terrified.

Tony looked up at Bucky, who had been by his side for every step of this insanity, who had held him and healed him and protected him. Who... loved him.

_You think sentiment makes me weak?_ Tony demanded of Pierce, struggling in his grip. _Fool. See how strong I can be, to protect what I love._ He dug his claws in until Pierce shrieked and writhed, and then Tony ripped them apart, tearing the wisp of Pierce’s soul into tattered shreds.

Strength and feeling flooded through Tony’s limbs, leaving them prickling and stinging; _pins and needles._ Bucky was right there, hands on Tony’s shoulders as Tony coughed and hacked. A heavy glob of black ichor came up from his chest, finally, and he spat it on the floor, half-retching.

“Oh, that’s _gross_ ,” Bucky said. He flinched away from the glob as it moved. Then he stamped on it, hard, as if it were a large and unpleasant insect.

Tony wasn’t sure if he imagined the tiny little cry that Pierce’s -- essence? soul? -- made as it died.

He hoped not. He hoped Pierce suffered to the last. Tony looked down at his hands, unstained and pale and shaking. He looked past Bucky at the wall, splashed with blood, and at Sitwell’s headless body crumpled on the floor. Then he looked back up at Bucky, who was looking back at him with wide, worried eyes. “I love you.”

“Sitwell… he said Pierce was… wait, what?” Bucky blinked at him, head tipped to one side like the dog in those RCA commercials. “You what?”

“I love you,” Tony repeated. “I thought you should know that.”

“Oh,” Bucky said. He raised his hand like he was going to touch Tony’s cheek and it was still sticky with Sitwell’s blood. “I... I know. I mean, me, too. Love you. Loved you first. Feels like… feels like I always have.” He scowled down at his hand, then the splatter of what remained of Pierce. “And this… ain’t the romantic settin’ I would have preferred for declarations of undyin’ -- heh, _undying_ \-- devotion.”

“We can have another go at it later,” Tony promised. “As romantic as you like. But it’s been an utter bastard of a night and I wanted there to be something good in it.”

Bucky nodded, slow, and then, “Fuck romance.” He uttered a short little growl that sent shivers down Tony’s spine. Slid that hand, dark with the blood of their enemies, into Tony’s hair. Pulled him in close and kissed Tony. Sweet and fierce and utterly perfect, his lips a soft cushion, his body heat practically baking out of him, his breath a caress against Tony’s cheek.

Tony wrapped his arms around Bucky’s shoulders and clung, prolonging the kiss, stretching it out and out, luxuriating in the taste of Bucky’s mouth, the hot press of Bucky’s tongue and lips. Wyr could hold their breaths longer than humans, apparently, but by the time Tony finally drew back, Bucky was panting. “Let’s go home.”

“Gods, yes,” Bucky responded. “I want a shower, some steaks, and to find out what loving a vampire feels like.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smut-averse readers: It's one of THOSE chapters. Nothing plotty here; feel free to skip straight to the next chapter. :D

They’d made it back to Tony’s safe haven barely ahead of the sun. While Tony could -- if he needed to -- fight the lure of oblivion, there was no reason to. Bucky practically carried him down to the crypt and guarded his sleep, only getting up himself as the afternoon turned into evening.

He’d been ravenously hungry when he woke, and no doubt Tony would be as well.

Feeding Bucky would be feeding them both, Bucky decided, and made liberal use of his phone and a delivery service. Chinese take out boxes scattered on the countertop, he went to take a shower.

Bucky dried himself off as quickly as possible; there was always a lingering wet dog smell after a shower, even when he was in his human form, and that probably wasn’t appealing to much of anyone. Not even a vampire.

He shivered in anticipation. The sun was touching the horizon outside the tinted glass.

Tucking the towel around his hips, Bucky went to look for something to wear. His clubbing clothes were covered with mud and blood and torn besides. Destined for the incinerator rather than the washing machine.

Tony’s closets were large, and aside from the vampire’s marked predilection for red, the choices were vast, spanning decades of fashion. Bucky was still searching through them when Tony appeared, pale as a ghost and nearly as quiet. He slipped his hands around Bucky’s waist from behind and leaned into Bucky’s back, nuzzling and nipping at the skin. “You smell good.”

“New cologne,” Bucky told him, grinning. “ _Odeur de loup mouillé_.” That towel was not going to stay on for very long, if Tony kept brushing his hands over Bucky’s waist.

Tony snorted. “You smell... warm. And content, which isn’t something you would think would have a scent, but there it is. I like it.”

“We lived to fight another day,” Bucky said, and he leaned back against Tony, the same way he might have with a pack leader. It was subtle, sometimes, the quest for dominance among the wyr packs. But Bucky was a lone wolf now, looking for some other star to hitch his wagon to. “And I’m well fed. An’ you love me. What more could I ask for?”

“A romantic setting, apparently.” Tony sounded amused. He took a step back, and another, catching Bucky’s hand to pull Bucky along with him.

It was a bedroom, still in the deep, windowless center of the house, but aside from that it looked normal enough -- or would have, if every available surface hadn’t been covered with candles. The bed was wide and covered with thick blankets and plush-looking pillows, inviting them to fall into its comfort. “What do you think?”

Tony was glowing golden in the flickering light. The candles softened his sharp edges a little, but there would never be any mistaking him for a living, breathing human. Which was all right; Bucky wasn’t human, either, and more than a little sharp himself.

Those dark eyes, wide and luminous, set in the middle of an unearthly, beautiful face, watched him with a hint of mischief, quite a lot of desire, and just the faintest hint of insecurity. Like Tony wasn’t quite sure how his big gesture would be received. That he honestly wanted to please Bucky and wasn’t positive that he could do it.

As if Tony needed to do anything at all to please Bucky, except _be Tony_.

“I think that bed’s gonna look a hell of a lot finer with you spread out over it,” Bucky suggested.

“Yeah?” Tony backed into the room, pulling Bucky along with him, until he bumped into the bed, and then he grinned and fell back onto it, dragging Bucky up over him like an exceptionally lumpy blanket. “How do you want me?”

Yeah, there went the towel. Bucky had to give it credit for hanging on as long as it had. “Is it true, what they say about vampires? That you need my blood in order t’ make love with me, but that it’ll be the most intense experience of my life?” Everyone knew that rumor; it was, as the wyr said, why humans were so drawn to the vampires, their natural predators.

Tony laughed. “Well, I need some fresh blood in me if you want me to get hard,” he admitted. “I don’t pretend to know what sort of experiences you’ve had, but I’ve been told it is, indeed, intense.” He teased his fingertip over the side of Bucky’s neck, eyes darkening when Bucky tipped his chin to show more of it. “What did it feel like when I fed from you before?”

“Like fallin’,” Bucky said, remembering that moment, the sharp razor pain and then-- “like fallin’ and knowing you were going to catch me. It wasn’t scary, not like I thought it would be. Just, weightlessness. An’... kinda like that moment, right after you orgasm, where everything’s all loose and your muscles are perfectly rested and your spine’s all aligned. Stretched out longer… until eternity.” He absolutely would have let Tony keep drinking until Bucky’s heart failed. And it would have been the best, kindest death. But he also trusted Tony not to do that.

“Best description of it I’ve ever heard,” Tony praised. “Good to know the glamor works on you. I wasn’t sure if it would.”

“It’s not glamor,” Bucky protested. “It’s just you.”

Tony lifted his head to nuzzle along the edge of Bucky’s jaw, then lipped at the soft skin just under Bucky’s ear. “May I?”

Bucky rolled his head on his neck, cracking his spine a few times, then tipped his head, giving Tony his throat. “Please.”

The best sort of shudder rippled down Tony’s spine. He pressed his lips to Bucky’s throat, sucking gently, raising a little bruise on the skin, teasing himself as much as Bucky, drawing out the anticipation. But finally, finally, he pressed the edge of a fang gently against the skin. It opened Bucky’s skin as smooth as a scalpel blade, with barely any pain at all, just a slight burn, and Tony’s tongue lapped at his neck.

Tony’s fingers slipped into Bucky’s hair and curled into a fist, holding Bucky in place, keeping his head tilted to the side. Bucky had half a second to think of resisting and to give himself over before Tony’s mouth closed and began to drink in earnest.

Whatever it was, glamour or love or desire or some inexplicable magic, Tony’s bite sent shockwaves through Bucky’s entire being. Every nerve ending ramped up to eleven; the bed sheets seemed even softer, the cushion of the mattress more giving, the glow of the candles more illuminating. The feel of Tony’s skin on his was lush, rich. He imagined he could detect each hair and the way his own were standing on end, wave after wave of gooseflesh shivering across the surface of his body. Each cell in his body cried out for Tony.

Each touch of Tony’s hands was heavenly perfection. Bliss.

Bucky almost ejaculated right there, on the spot, from that single bite.

“Fuck--” he managed, a strangled breath of indescribable pleasure.

Tony chuckled, the vibrations of sound juddering down Bucky’s skin. He sucked at Bucky’s throat, an impossibly sweet rush of blood through Bucky’s veins that seemed to draw all of Bucky inward, toward Tony, _into_ Tony, and there was nothing that Bucky wanted more.

After what seemed hours or perhaps only a few too-short seconds, Tony licked the wounds closed again and pulled away. His skin was flushed now, his eyes dark with wanting. “You’re amazing,” he breathed. “Human blood may never satisfy me again.” He nuzzled up under Bucky’s jaw, nipping lightly -- not breaking the skin but letting his teeth scrape gently. “But I think it’s your turn for some satisfaction, hm?” He rolled his hips, pressing the now-hard length of him against Bucky’s leg.

Tony was almost too bright, too brilliant, too beloved for Bucky to look directly at him. Bucky gave up trying to figure out exactly where Tony’s mouth was, and settled for dropping tiny, loving kisses all over his forehead, nose, and cheeks, mapping the features with his lips. “You could bite me while I come, an’ I swear, I’d go blind,” Bucky told him, finally locating an ear and licking the shell.

His nose still worked fine, and he could actually detect his own blood, just under the surface of Tony’s skin, a mingling of their scents that was more intimate than any sex could ever have been. He traced the artery in Tony’s neck with his tongue, then mimicked the vampire’s bite, sucking the blood to the surface to form a faint bruise. It wouldn’t last, of course, but for just a moment, Bucky could taste it there, and feel some smug satisfaction at having marked his vampire.

Tony made a soft, hungry sound, and threw his own head back, offering himself up to Bucky’s touch. “I’m all yours,” he promised, “and you’re mine.” His fingers were still in Bucky’s hair, stroking gently now, teasing at the nape of Bucky’s neck. One leg lifted to wrap around Bucky’s hip, holding them close together.

It was impossible not to move once Tony raised his hips like that, and so Bucky didn’t resist, stropping himself against the pale, cool expanse of Tony’s thigh. He wasn’t sure what to expect. Elegance and an amused distance from his vampiric lover, who had surely taken many into his bed over the long centuries, mortal and otherwise. But Tony seemed just as eager, just as hot-blooded as Bucky himself. _I did that,_ he thought, suddenly. It was Bucky’s own blood, inside Tony, that could drive him to a fever-frenzy of lust.

So, Bucky contented himself with doing what he knew; testing and tasting, finding the places and the movements and the caresses that made Tony moan and shiver, and then doing them again. He found the pulse points were the most sensitive and dedicated several long, tantalizing moments to exploring the inside of Tony’s wrist, delicate skin and sensitive nerves.

Tony’s skin, cool and firm, was like a foil to Bucky’s own, heated and needy. It let him think about more than his own pleasure, letting him relax into long, languid movements. Making love to a vampire, like worshipping an old god, was a celebration of the arcane. Time went away, and all Bucky knew was the next chorus in an ancient hymn, the next movement of tongue, the next brush of fingers.

He was lost in it, swimming in an ocean of pleasure, until it was too much, even for him, to resist it, and he needed, needed, God, he needed, now. “Tony--”

“I’m here,” Tony said, and he sounded hoarse, desperate and needy. “I’m here, love.” He cupped Bucky’s face in his hands, drew Bucky to him for another kiss, messy and frantic. He reached between them, cool fingers sliding along Bucky’s overheated skin like diving into a pool on a hot summer day. They curled around his cock, and that touch wasn’t cooling. Instead, it made Bucky feel even hotter, tighter.

Tony wriggled and pushed and nudged until they’d rolled over, Bucky laid flat with Tony poised above him, and then Tony had slithered down the bed, nestled between Bucky’s thighs, and was licking Bucky’s cock like it was a melting ice cream cone.

Bucky shrieked, fists bunching into the sheets to hold himself down. Trying to hold himself back, and then it hit him with the force of a blow. Tony didn’t need to breathe; a vampire wouldn’t have a gag reflex. The thought rolled over him like a dark wave, and then Bucky was fucking up into that wetness, that tight clench. Tony’s mouth started cool, but rapidly warmed against Bucky’s body heat, until it was nothing but heat and wet and perfection.

One hand left the sheets, his human hand, to brush over Tony’s hair, to thumb against his jaw, to circle those perfect lips. Looking down into whiskey dark eyes, Bucky had a flash memory of the bite, and wondered what it would be like, if Tony bit him, the vein in his thigh, and then it was gone, he was gone, he was--

“Tony, oh, oh--” White hot, electrical, a squeeze and a clench and every cell in his body gripped as tight as it could, and then… let go in a flood of pleasure. He collapsed back onto the bed, trying to remember how to breathe.

For the first time, ever, he understood why the French called it “the little death.” _La petite morte_. Truly, Bucky died and was reborn in that moment.

Tony looked up, licking his lips with the smug demeanor of a cat in the cream. He wasn’t even out of breath, because of course he wasn’t. He rested his chin on Bucky’s hipbone and grinned, flashing a hint of fang. “Still got it.”

Tony’s voice wasn’t even hoarse, and that seemed somehow unfair, but Bucky was too blissed out to complain. “I begin to understand why the church worried that vampires were some sort of evil devil’s minions, to woo people away from the arms of God.” Bucky absolutely would have knelt at Tony’s feet, if Tony wished it. Worshipped him. Not as a god, but as a man.

“Gimme like… two minutes,” Bucky said, cupping Tony’s cheek. “Us mortals need to breathe.” And that was a thought he was going to put aside; he was mortal. Tony wasn’t. A sudden ache in his chest for that, and then he tenderly tucked the thought away. Now was not time for remorse over things that hadn’t yet happened. “I love you.”

Tony turned his face into Bucky’s hand and kissed the palm. “Love you too.” He crawled up and snuggled up against Bucky’s side. “Take your time. I’ve been waiting for you for centuries, I think; what’s another few minutes?”

“Over,” Buck decided. He squirmed out from under Tony’s body, searching the bedside tables. “Tell me that romance extends to practical-- ah, there we go.” Lube, the modern kind, not the Vaseline slick from when Bucky was younger. Much younger.

With a quick, ruthless hand, Bucky opened himself up, while Tony watched with avid, eager eyes.

“You’re so beautiful,” Tony whispered. “Don’t hurt yourself; I’m not going anywhere.” He traced his own fingers down Bucky’s arm to press against Bucky’s rim, testing the muscle where it clenched around Bucky’s fingers. “Just relax, we have time.”

“I know,” Bucky told him. “But when you find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with-- you want that to start _right away_.” He shifted, closed his eyes for a long moment, then opened them again to stare at Tony’s perfect face. “And I _need_ you, so bad.”

“I need you too,” Tony agreed. He stretched out over Bucky, cock sliding along Bucky’s crack, nudging at Bucky’s hole. “You’re going to feel so, _so_ good...” He tucked his face against Bucky’s shoulder as he pressed in. “Oh, God, oh...” He nipped at Bucky’s skin, scraped at it with a fang. Not enough for a true feeding, but enough for a taste, enough to send that blissful rush through Bucky’s body again.

Bucky let himself fall back onto the bed, legs spread and knees up to cradle his lover, let his head roll back--

“ _Oh_ ,” he gasped, looking up. There was a mirror on the ceiling, because of course there was. But-- he could only see himself. The effects of his body as Tony moved him, moved over him, but Tony cast no reflection at all. It was like Tony was invisible.

Bucky raised his legs and crossed his ankles at the small of Tony’s back, pulling him down, and watched as he did it. Gaze flickering between the lover he _knew_ was in his arms, and the one who was only a dream of smoke in the mirror. “Ain’t that somethin’ else?”

“Hmm?” Tony glanced at Bucky’s face, followed his gaze upward, and laughed. “Yes. You can see how beautiful you are, without any impediment, hm?” He nuzzled at Bucky’s throat as he bottomed out, groaning.

“How beautiful you make me,” Bucky said. And he couldn’t help but watch, even though he didn’t care overly much for his own beauty. The way his face twisted and then relaxed at every movement from Tony, the way his limbs reacted, the involuntary curl of his toes, the way his hips rolled, seeking that perfect friction. He could even see as he grew hard again, cock nudging earnestly at Tony’s belly.

It was obscene and amazing, lewd and luscious, all at the same time. It made Bucky hot all over with embarrassment, made him even hotter with wanting. His heart was throbbing so fast he couldn’t even count it, blood pulsing in his veins, a sweet siren’s call to his lover.  

“So good, so _amazing_ , oh... Bucky--” Tony broke off, his rhythm faltering and he sucked harder at Bucky’s skin as his body shuddered into climax.

“Bite me,” Bucky told him, almost _ordered_ \-- _take of my blood, and I shall be eternal_ \-- and as Tony’s fangs sank into his throat, Bucky’s whole body stiffened in response. Forget blood loss; humans died from pleasure at a vampire’s hands and only his wyr blood gave him anything like control over it. Bucky screamed as a second climax ripped through him, tearing him to pieces and then gently, ever so carefully, put him back together. “Holy Christ.”

Tony licked at the wound and then gently withdrew, but only far enough to let him curl in against Bucky’s side. He wasn’t breathing hard -- or at all -- but he was limp and utterly relaxed, radiating a faint warmth from Bucky’s blood. “That was... perfect.”

“And that’s only on a first attempt,” Bucky pointed out, idly drawing circles on Tony’s shoulder and watching his reflection. “Just think how good it’ll be with some _practice_.”

“Hard to imagine it getting better, but I eagerly anticipate the attempts.” Tony tipped his face up to claim a kiss. “Many, many attempts.”

 


	10. Epilogue

Sicily was beautiful, even by moonlight. Tony leaned on the balcony of their resort villa in Taormina and looked out over the town, at the ripple of the moon on the water. The air was still and heavy, and the heat of the day was still escaping the tiles under his feet, the closest he would ever be to the sun’s light again.

He shook his head -- being here always made him a little maudlin, but he had no reason for melancholy. Not now. For now, he had everything he could wish for -- his devoted people were safe, Hydra hadn’t turned its eye on New York again, and he was on holiday with his beautiful, brilliant lover. Who would be returning to the villa soon, no doubt, with dinner.

Bucky had been, in turns, disappointed and then relieved that the garlic allergy was just a myth, because they were, after all, _in Italy_. Watching Bucky enjoy the various cuisines of the world as they traveled slowly across Europe had been almost as delightful as eating them himself had once been. Vaguely, Tony could remember his mama rolling out pasta dough and letting the long strands dry on racks. He couldn't conjure a memory of the actual taste anymore; all human food tasted the same to him. Bland, sort of mushy. He could eat it, if he needed to play a part, but it provided him nothing, and his body refused to recognize it as anything besides an act.

But when Bucky tucked into a huge bowl of ravioli, eating with pure, animal gusto, Tony could… almost envy him.

“So,” Bucky said, as if Tony’s thoughts had summoned him, “do you know this castle of yours is supposedly haunted?” He laid out his purchases on the wooden table. “An old lady down in the village gave me a charm against _haunts_. Is that a special sort of ghost, do you think, or is it just you?”

Tony picked up the little charm, turning it over to feel the bumpy pattern of braided string and carved wood. “Quaint. I’d say it’s just me, but we won’t know for certain until we go up there.” He grinned at Bucky. “You never know; a real ghost might have moved in since I was here last.”

Bucky finished getting his plates of food arranged and then poured Tony a glass of wine, mixed with a few drops of Bucky’s own blood. It kept Tony’s energy at peak performance, the kind of power he’d not felt since his awakening, without the need for a deep feed.

Even if they did that, rather frequently, too. But it gave Tony something to hold and a reason to sit at the table with Bucky. A mortal tradition that Tony was slowly re-acquiring.

Bucky was getting quite tan, being in Italy, Tony noted. In New York, he was mostly on Tony’s schedule, but he’d been rising in the early afternoon on their travels, wanting to see the sights and sample the food and talk to the people.

“You grew up here?” Bucky gestured with his own wine glass. The old hotel where they were staying hadn’t even had the ground broken on the spot when Tony was a lad, but the street hadn’t moved, though it now carried motorbikes and bicycles and the occasional car where once it had teemed with horses and pedestrians.

“Hereabouts,” Tony agreed, waving languidly toward the street. “I doubt much of anything of my childhood remains.”

And it wasn’t, in the end, his mortal birth that had been important. He had been one of a hundred or more boys near his age in the town. But that one had drawn the eye of Howard Stark, the lord of all the land he could survey, and a vampire. Howard -- Tony had never learned his birth name -- had come from Jericho, and then he’d moved to Italy and built himself a castle on top of the mountain here. They had called it The Jericho’s Castle, and then Jericho Castle, and then simply Jericho.

Tony had been summoned to Jericho to serve the lord as a young man, and never returned to his mother and father. Reborn years later as the lord’s heir and a vampire in his own right, it was his _death_ that had been the true turning point of Tony’s life.

“The beaches are lovely,” Bucky said. “Especially at night.”

Tony had made his peace with never seeing the sun again, but Bucky was sensitive to it, never implying that Tony might have been happier under its light. He wasn’t. Bucky was all the sunlight he could ever need. Warm and nourishing and kind.

Tony shot Bucky an impish grin. “When I was a boy, we swam naked, you know.” He loved to try to make Bucky blush. It was harder now than it had been at first, but not yet difficult enough to make him give it up.

“And you can again, if you don’t think the moon will get envious,” Bucky shot back, cheeks dark with blood, but up for a game of innuendo. “Your perfect, round backside is some serious competition, all marble white as it is.”

“The moon may strive in vain to outshine me,” Tony agreed mock-haughtily, then leaned across the table for a kiss. “And the sun may continue to try to seduce you away, and yet they both shall fail.” He sat back, grinning. “We can go swimming if you like, after we’ve been up to the castle.”

“Will you tell me, then, why we’re going to this particular, run-down old castle from the middle of the last millennium? Built by _invaders_ , no less, the historian was quite in raptures to have someone willing listen to his old musty tales.”

Tony sipped the wine, feeling the light spark of Bucky’s blood in the back of his throat. “It’s one of the few places that hasn’t moved, in all this time,” he said. It wasn’t the original Jericho Castle -- that had fallen into ruin long before the invaders had come along to build their own castle on top of it. But it was still sacred ground, to Tony. “I try to pay my respects once every century or so. Take a walk around the old walls, make sure no one’s broken into the crypts, leave a flower on the grave.”

“Whose-- _oh_ ,” Understanding blossomed in those pale blue eyes. “Your own.” He took a large forkful of pasta, chewed thoughtfully. “Well, that’s… a bit of relief, really. I thought you might be missing an old betrothed, long gone. I can compete with a lot of things, but not a ghost.” He stretched his hand over the table, reaching for Tony, and the way his fingers squeezed, Tony was convinced that Bucky had been both joking, and utterly serious at the same time.

“Sweetheart.” Tony pulled Bucky’s fingers in and kissed the tips of them, one after the other. “Nothing could ever possibly compete with you. I don’t think I’ve ever loved anyone the way I love you.”

“Everything good and real in my life is right here,” Bucky told him, earnestly. “Come on, let’s go pay our respects, then.” He scraped the very last bite of pasta off his plate and shoved back from the table.

Tony stood up and wrapped his arms around Bucky’s neck. “I’ve never told anyone that,” he admitted. “You can do a lot of nasty things to a vampire if you can put your hands on their grave.”

Bucky smiled, soft and sincere. “I can do a lot of nasty things to a vampire if I can put my hands on _him_. Maybe even _on_ his grave.” He leaned into the hug. “Thank you. For trusting me. You know I’d never do anything to break that.”

“I know. That’s why I’m trusting you.” Tony leaned up to kiss him. “Come on, let’s go do something nasty on top of my grave.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap on this story!
> 
> Next Sunday, we'll start posting our continuation of [Dark Enchantments](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16008545). In the meantime, please feel free to drop by our tumblrs ([27dragons](https://27dragons.tumblr.com/) | [tisfan](https://tisfan.tumblr.com/)) or pillowforts ([27dragons](https://www.pillowfort.io/27dragons) | [tisfan](https://www.pillowfort.io/tisfan)) to flail about beautiful superheroes, tell us your favorite headcanons, or just say hi!


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